Life & Work with Treger Strasberg

Today we’d like to introduce you to Treger Strasberg.

Hi Treger, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory. 
When I moved to Birmingham from Miami with my husband and two small children in 2009, I was looking for a way to give back to the community and began volunteering at Forgotten Harvest. I only worked a few hours a week, helping with their marketing, and I made a friend with one of the employees. One day, she shared that she and her kids were essentially homeless, and it blew my mind. How could a college-educated woman who had a full-time job end up in this situation? It not only made me realize the life of privilege I had been raised in, but how important it is to have that safety net and support system. I rallied my neighbors and the other moms at my kids’ school, and after she secured a place for her and her two children to rent, we were able to fully furnish and decorate her home in just a few weeks with items all of us gathered. 

I’d made such a case for people to give me their gently used furniture and household items that word spread, and items kept showing up on my porch and in my driveway. I called around to all the shelters offering the stuff I now had piling up in my garage, and they told me they had no place to store it, and that this was a huge hole in the system in dealing with housing for the unhoused–they have little to nothing to make their new place a home. My husband said, “Well, it looks like you’re starting a nonprofit!” and Humble Design was born. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been smooth, and there have been many struggles. Our very first fundraiser was a Gatsby event with a champagne tower and a band. It also happened to be on the night of a huge snowstorm. No one showed up! There were barely ten of us, including my husband and me. Figuring out how to organize the logistics of not only storing all the furniture that people wished to donate but finding a way to have it available to choose and select and then having a way to get it to those we were serving was tricky. Finding the right partnering agencies and shelters, establishing a process, and then growing from doing one client a month in 2009-2010 to doing three clients a week in 2016 meant there were a LOT of struggles along the way. When it got challenging when we didn’t think we were going to have enough money to meet payroll and even today, when we face obstacles, seeing the faces and the reactions of those we serve as they walk into their newly furnished and decorated homes for the first time–makes it worth ALL the struggles. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My undergraduate degree was in Fine Arts and Marketing. Working in the marketing world didn’t fulfill me, but founding and working for Humble Design has provided me the opportunity to use my marketing skills to help others experiencing hard times and to create the space for others to join in that service, which has resulted in creating community in unexpected ways. So many of our clients say, “I didn’t know anybody cared.” Which almost always makes our volunteers cry and most certainly makes me cry. 

In 2017, we opened a location in Chicago, Illinois, then in 2018, a location in Seattle and San Diego. In 2020, right at the start of the pandemic, we opened a location in Cleveland, Ohio, with the help of Progressive Insurance. I am extremely proud of that, personally and professionally. 

Last year I was able to complete a Nonprofit Management Certificate from Harvard University. Sitting on the lawn with the other graduates was a surreal moment for me. It was such an incredible experience, and one of my most satisfying moments was when one of my Harvard professors accepted a position on our National Board of Trustees. 

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out.
It’s hard. Knowing that and not giving up when the struggles come is the key. Believe in what you are doing, and it makes all the struggles worth it. If we sincerely work at making the world a better, more caring place–it helps everyone. Find a way to make the world better than how you found it. 

Contact Info:

• Website: humbledesign.org
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humbledesigndetroit/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/humble-design/mycompany/?viewAsMember=true
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/HumbleDesign1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC-4r1619pDVOPqOe_G3nIw
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/humbledesigndetroit/

Image Credits
Humble Design, Inc.