Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture Wins Executive Technology Retail Community Service Award
Norton, MA, February 19, 2004 — Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture has been selected as one of ten international retailers to receive the prestigious Executive Technology Retail Community Service Award. The award honors businesses that are building a better world for people through their community service efforts. The award was presented to Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture at a gala event held in conjunction with the National Retail Federation Show in January in New York City. Bernie Rubin, co-founder and president, and Larry Rubin, chief operating officer, accepted the award on behalf of the company.
Executive Technology Magazine, which gave out the awards, said that Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture was the smallest retailer to have ever received the award. The other winners this year were Belk, Best Buy, Charming Shoppes, Dollar General, Giant Food Stores, Grupo Pão de Açúcar, LensCrafters, RadioShack, and Target.
Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture was selected because of its ongoing and strong commitment to donating furniture to organizations in need. In the last three years, the company’s Friends in Need program has donated over $1.2 million worth of furniture to Morgan Memorial Goodwill and Teen Challenge New England. Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture also has an ongoing relationship with the Boston and Nashua Habitat for Humanity organizations to help furnish for free all of the homes they build. Since 2001, the retailer has donated furniture to over 25 Habitat houses across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.“We are honored to receive this prestigious award,” said Bernie Rubin, president of Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture. “We work hard every day to represent the best that our industry has to offer, and it is wonderful to have our dedication to community service recognized by our peers.”
Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture was started by the Rubin family in 1983 and has since grown from a small storefront into the largest independent furniture retailer in Massachusetts. Based in Norton, MA, the company has six Massachusetts stores in Cambridge, Everett, Raynham (55,000 s/f superstore), Saugus (50,000 s/f superstore), Westboro (50,000 s/f superstore), and Weymouth, and one New Hampshire store in Nashua (86,000 s/f superstore). Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture is among the top 100 furniture stores in the Unites States, according to Furniture/Today magazine. The company was named the 2002 Retailer of the Year by the National Home Furnishings Association.