GG's House Giving GraceLIFE TRANSFORMATION CAMPUS
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Today, GG's House serves the community from 1714 Pacific Avenue in Forest Grove, its fourth operating location. The story began in 2015, when Steve and Angel Sheets started gathering useful things at home and sharing them with people who could use them. From there, each move made room for more participation, more relationships, and new ways to help.
Long before the proposed campus, the community kept showing up and the work kept growing.
The campus did not create the vision. The vision grew through years of real experience.
The beginning was modest and personal. There were no formal programs and no large property plan. There were rooms, a detached garage, donated goods, handwritten signs, and neighbors helping neighbors.
The scale changed. The core practice did not.
Steve and Angel began gathering useful items, sharing belongings from their own home, and accepting donations from neighbors who wanted to help. This early practice became known as Getting & Giving: gather what someone could use and pass it along.
The work was already outgrowing the household before GG's House had nonprofit status or a permanent building plan.
In 2016, GG's House moved a short distance down the street from the founders' home into its first rented Gaston storefront. The Giving House gave volunteers, donated goods, and community relationships room to keep growing in a place people could recognize and visit.
This was the first move away from the founders' property and the beginning of GG's House operating from rented space.
A friend's sketch helped the name “GG's House” take shape. GG's House Giving Grace received 501(c)(3) approval in May 2017, giving formal nonprofit structure to work that had already begun.
A friend's sketch helped the name “GG's House” take shape. In May 2017, IRS tax-exempt status became effective, creating a formal nonprofit structure for work already underway.
A familiar community effort now had a name, an identity, and a structure built to continue.
In January 2020, GG's House moved from Gaston to 2835 19th Avenue, Space 700, in Forest Grove. The building was expected to serve mainly as storage. Almost immediately, it became more.
In January 2020, GG's House moved from Gaston to 2835 19th Avenue, Space 700, in Forest Grove. The building was initially expected to serve largely as storage. That expectation changed almost immediately.
This location became the setting for more distribution, food support, school relationships, volunteer growth, community events, and a wider regional network. The third location gave GG's House room to adapt, but it also revealed how quickly the community could ask more of the available space.
GG's House had just moved when the pandemic changed everyday life. Distribution expanded. A temporary food effort with Crossroads Church became part of the response. Oregon wildfires created another call for useful supplies and deliveries. Schools, families, seniors, and holiday efforts added new layers of activity.
They had just moved when the pandemic changed everyday life. Distribution expanded. A temporary food effort with Crossroads Church became part of the response. Oregon wildfires created another call for useful supplies and deliveries. Schools, families, seniors, and holiday efforts added new layers of activity.
GG's House did not follow one fixed program. It listened, adjusted, and worked with other people and organizations to meet the moment.
By June 2021, inventory had outgrown the shelving and GG's House was using three additional storage units. At the same time, relationships with schools, churches, businesses, seniors, and volunteers continued to widen.
The English-and-Spanish flyer announces a free GG's House carnival on July 17, 2021, from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at Crossroads Church, with games, face painting, and prizes. Its address and phone number are preserved as historical event details.
By June 2021, inventory had outgrown the shelving and GG's House was using three additional storage units. At the same time, relationships with schools, churches, businesses, seniors, and volunteers continued to widen.
A December front-door scene captured the culture better than a slogan: people waiting for their own items shared the tablet and pen, held doors, helped unload, and helped one another put things into vehicles. The need for a larger space was no longer an abstract future idea. The limits were visible in daily work.
By September 2023, GG's House was writing publicly about a permanent building and sharing ideas recorded over the years: classes, workshops, arts, crafts, practical skills, and places to gather.
By September 2023, the permanent-place vision Steve had written down in 2017 was moving into wider public view. GG's House was writing about a permanent building, a building fund with earlier roots, and ideas that had been kept in notebooks for years: classes, workshops, arts, crafts, practical skills, and community gathering.
Outside relationships were growing too. In November 2023, McKenzie Services documented (opens in a new tab) an ongoing partnership that redirected useful inventory from disposal through GG's House, including food-grade gloves matched with community uses.
The vision was reaching beyond storing and distributing goods. GG's House was learning from experience what a permanent community place might make possible.
Meals, crafts, gatherings, and people returning to help others were becoming part of everyday life around GG's House. In December 2024, volunteers began collecting community stories for an independent creative project that would later become Catch Me When I Fall.
The history was no longer only about what moved through a building. It was also about what people made, learned, remembered, and carried forward together. GG's House was becoming a place where practical help, friendship, creativity, and contribution could exist side by side.
After nearly five and a half years at 2835 19th Avenue, GG's House was unexpectedly required to move. A new location was found in about three weeks. People packed, hauled, installed flooring, reorganized the building, and kept the work moving. The relocation began in early June. GG's House reopened to the public on July 1, 2025.
People packed, hauled, installed flooring, reorganized the building, and kept the work moving. The relocation took place in early June. GG's House reopened to the public on July 1, 2025.
Second Chance Treasures opened in February 2026 and remains an active, volunteer-supported part of GG's House. The secondhand shop gives people practical opportunities to learn and practice customer service, responsibility, and workplace expectations in a real setting. Current hours should be confirmed before visiting.
Second Chance Treasures opened in February 2026. The current building also supported a lobby, clothing access, community gathering, food-bank relationships, and other small-scale possibilities.
But the search for permanence continued. By April, the building had been placed for sale, reinforcing a question that had been growing for years: what would it take for GG's House to stop moving? The current location showed what could begin in limited space while making the need for a lasting home even clearer.
Beginning in December 2024, a trained volunteer team interviewed 50 GG's House clients, volunteers, and community members and gathered more than 70 hours of stories. Jodi Walder shaped those accounts into Catch Me When I Fall, with music and lyrics by Noel Katz. STAGES Performing Arts Youth Academy produced the world premiere in 2026.
The production brought stories connected to GG's House before audiences across Washington County, included a community performance at GG's House, and supported GG's House through its performances and community storytelling.
Each location taught GG's House something. Each move revealed what the available space could-and could not-support.
Over time, the permanent-home vision became less about one building and more about creating lasting room for people to learn, serve, create, mentor, gather, and contribute.
GG's House is now pursuing the preferred property as a possible permanent home. The property has not been acquired.
From the founders' home and detached garage, to the first rented Gaston storefront, to two Forest Grove locations, each move created more room and revealed new limits.
The campus vision did not create the mission. It grew from what GG's House learned while serving people, building relationships, and adapting one location at a time.
Whether you have an hour, a skill, a trade, or simply a willingness to help, tell us a little about yourself.
