Company cast-offs for a cause

Karen Lewis and her husband, Steven, in her Newton office. Steven's cancer diagnosis was the catalyst for her nonprofit group, the Furniture Trust. (Wendy Maeda/Globe Staff)

For three decades, Karen Lewis sold office furniture across the nation. Now, through her charitable organization, she's connecting corporation cast-offs with schools and nonprofit groups. Surplus items are sold, with the proceeds supporting research into pancreatic cancer, the disease her husband has been battling since last summer, and other worthy causes.

"We ensure that the furniture that they give us will not go into a landfill," said Lewis, a 59-year-old Newton resident. "Furniture that has not been donated or sold is stripped down and recycled back to its component parts," from wood to plastics to metal casters, she said. Among some of the 25 businesses partnering with her nonprofit charity, the Furniture Trust, are Bank of America, John Hancock, and Advent International.

The idea for the trust took seed 15 months ago, when John Riley, a close friend and furniture installer for Lewis, became disgusted with what was being thrown away at office buildings.

"John told me that there was a way to make this right by cutting down on landfills and donating the excess to nonprofits," she said. Then in August 2007, two months after their son Ryan returned from the war in Iraq, Steven Lewis was diagnosed with cancer.

She spent the next few months at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center while her husband underwent surgery and chemotherapy.

"Dr. Mark Callery performed the Big Dig inside of my husband," said Lewis. "He took out the tumor and redirected everything; this cancer kills 90 percent of those who have it."

Lewis said that she felt an overwhelming desire to show her gratitude. After learning that research into pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly forms of the disease, is under-funded, Lewis decided to start the Furniture Trust and set up the Steven Lewis Fund for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Beth Israel Deaconess.

Lewis met her husband at the age of 20 when the two were summer camp counselors in Pennsylvania. After four days she proposed to him, and he accepted. "It was the best sales pitch I ever made!" said Lewis, laughing. She moved to New York City to finish college while Steven was at Colombia University working on his master's degree in exercise physiology.

The couple then headed to California, where Lewis earned her master's degree in education and then taught elementary school in Redwood City for six years while Steven earned his doctorate at Stanford University. They settled in Dallas, where Steven took a job at the University of Texas Health Science Center. A car accident in 1978 quickly changed her life.

"Physically I was OK, but psychologically I wasn't," said Lewis. "Someone had driven head-on into my lane, and afterward I was afraid to drive."

The couple lived in a town house next to an office park, and one morning, determined to find a job she didn't have to drive to, Lewis planned to scour every business in the complex. The first one she approached was Herman Miller, an office furniture company.

"The design of the office was incredible," said Lewis. She spent two hours talking with the sales manager and the next morning was hired to answer phones for 20 hours a week. Lewis said she was happy to work for $5 an hour as long as she didn't have to drive.

"It turned out that Herman Miller handled all of the office furniture for Texas Instruments, one of the first companies to use systems furniture with panels and components," Lewis said. "I had walked into a gold mine, yet didn't realize it at the time."

After five months, the office manager asked if she could learn the company's product lines, because they needed someone to work with the facility planners putting the component parts together. "I went home and memorized the 150-page book," said Lewis.

Eventually the job required driving, and Lewis she realized that she needed to overcome her anxiety. Business was great, and Lewis spent the next 12 years with Herman Miller. Then one day, Steven Lewis said he wanted to work in Boston's academic environment.

In the winter of 1990 the family moved to Brookline. "My husband walked to work and my kids loved it," said Lewis. "They thought it was like Sesame Street because there were stores around the corner, which we didn't have in Dallas."

Lewis, on the other hand, was miserable. She tried to immerse herself in the community, becoming the director of adult education at her family's synagogue, and a class mother at school, but it wasn't enough. She called one of the Herman Miller dealerships and the next week began working as a sales representative.

One of her clients told her that their company really wanted Herman Miller furniture but couldn't afford it, and asked if she knew of anyone moving out of their space whose furniture they could purchase.

"That was the beginning of the rest of my life," said Lewis. She learned about used furniture and opened a small subsidiary in her dealership named "Again." A few years later the company decided to drop its used-furniture operation, and Lewis went out on her own, opening Karen Lewis Associates Inc. in 1997. Within a few months she had six employees, and she is still running the company.

Lewis said that she recently had two inquires about franchising the Furniture Trust, which she will consider. Additional proceeds, she said, are also going toward the American Diabetes Association and other charities.

"I've been very fortunate in my life," said Lewis. "But when your spouse is faced with his own mortality, your life just changes. This cancer kills 90 percent of those who have it. My husband, so far, is in the 10 percent and we intend to keep him there."

For more on Karen Lewis' nonprofit organization, visit thefurnituretrust.org.

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