Rebuilding Chicago furniture in Minneapolis

Lets first start with what happened on the 25th of May with the murder of Gorge Floyd. We would like to wish Gorge Floyd's family and friends ease to this unbearable pain. It is heartbreaking to witness this kind of tragedy, the pain its unreal for this to happen again to an innocent black man. We believe there has to be a systematic change so that this kind of thing won’t ever happen again. We are all in this together! Uniting is powerful and we believe we could make a difference by bonding together. Enough is enough!


Unfortunately, during the protest that’s happening in Minneapolis for the justice of Gorge Floyd, numerous minority businesses    have been a victim and destroyed tragically. Chicago Furniture is one of the stores that burned down to the ground today, May 30, 2020. It’s the second Ethiopian owned businesses that got into this unfortunate following Bole Ethiopian Cuisine. We are heartbroken and in disbelief that this happened to us. The owner of Chicago Furniture Warehouse, Faisal, has always graciously supported  the black Community in Minneapolis for 25+ years. Chicago furniture warehouse is located at 2941 Chicago ave s. During his time in business he has been more than a family to many minorities by giving jobs by guiding and by supporting.


He helped my friends and I through college and make our dreams come true. He supported us financially, emotionally, and mentally every step of our path. Today, when the store burned down to ashes, he was more worried about the employees, their family, and the people that he supports. He supports international college students and low-income minorities that have big families on a monthly basis. His store is home for too many of us, it breaks our heart that the legacy he built for decades falls apart in a day. The three-store floor burning down won’t only impact him, but also impact the people that are getting help from him.

The owner Faisal Demaag didn’t ask us to do this, however, we wanted to ease the burden on his shoulder by doing the least we could do, which is asking our community for help. It’s finally our turn to give back for all he did for us. Community is about coming together when our people are down. Faisal is our mentor and our father figure,Due to the pandemic the store was really affected and was looking forward to reopening when the shelter in place is lifted, we are raising money to keep the business alive. The money will be used to pay the employees that will be out of job, replace the furniture that was damaged, and cover some expenses to rebuild the store. Do us a huge favor and share the gofundme to friends
and family, it will mean so much too us.

Please let’s help one another.
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Update

I would like to start by thanking you all for showing your support. We truly appreciate the donations, shares and prayers we've gotten thus far. I wanted to give updates on our current circumstances. In the process of rebuilding our store, we learned that our store was under insured and our insurance is not covering much of our loss. The first step towards rebuilding the store is to demolish the area and clean the debris from the place so we reached out to debris removal companies in order to do so. After comparing the offers we've got from multiple companies the least expensive  asks us around $133,000 for removal of debris and our insurance is covering only up-to $25,000. Mind you, our goal of raising $150,000 were in hopes of covering employees paycheck, replace the furniture that was damaged and cover some expenses to rebuild the store, however, it turns out that our initial goal will only help us removal of the debris. We've tried desperately to talk to the city and other offices that might help us, but we have not got any response yet. We sincerely ask for our community help us reach our goal any way possible to help us accomplish the first step of rebuilding the store, which is  removal of the debris.

Thank you in advance for your support.



If you have any question please contact us:
Bezawit Fetene- Insta _beziii  (703) [phone redacted]
Yanet Lakew- Insta _its_yanet  (507)469-8099
Dagim Demake- insta dagim_d (651) [phone redacted]
Owner of the store Email- [email redacted]