Fran Heitzman

Witnessing the absurd level of enthusiasm among the volunteers at Bridging’s 26,000-square-foot Bloomington warehouse, a skeptical visitor might suspect it’s being staged for his benefit. The organization supplies furniture and household goods to low-income families, and nearly all the volunteers are engaged in some sort of manual labor—hauling mattresses, sorting linens, unloading trucks, sawing two-by-fours. Yet the throngs of mostly seniors go about their duties laughing and chatting like school kids on a field trip.

Striding through the warehouse, Fran Heitzman pauses frequently to greet the laborers. The organization’s exuberant eighty-one-year-old founder and a six-day-a-week volunteer seems to know everyone by name, which makes sense, since many are friends, colleagues, and acquaintances he’s recruited. “The people are what make this place,” he says with obvious pride.

Yet Bridging got its start with just one person. In 1987, Heitzman, then a custodian at an Eden Prairie church, volunteered to find a home for a congregation member’s donated crib. Soon other members came to him with cast-off furniture, and Heitzman filled the church basement as he worked to place the items. Bridging was formed when his grateful priest asked Heitzman whether he might move his “ministry” into a larger space.

Nineteen years and six locations later, Bridging is one of the metro’s most active and successful nonprofit organizations, storing and distributing items at warehouses in Bloomington, St. Cloud, and a new St. Paul location. This year, the group expects to distribute nearly $9 million worth of beds, dressers, lamps, tables, and more—quality items, Heitzman points out, donated or built from scratch in Bridging’s volunteer-staffed shop. Heitzman is both driven and humbly charismatic, and he continues to court volunteers and donors, giving presentations, as he says, “to anyone who’ll have me.”

As Heitzman continues his warehouse stroll, two volunteers stop to chat about the weather, the day’s contributions, and Heitzman’s magazine profile. One jokes that the cover should fold out in order to display an immense portrait of Bridging’s founder.

“Nah,” the other volunteer disagrees. “That’s the beauty of this man—he’s human-sized.”