by HIGH POINT — The American Home Furnishings Alliance is hosting its second annual Furniture Safety Week Oct. 6-10. The initiative is designed to engage all segments of the home furnishings industry in public conversation about furniture and home safety.
“By increasing consumer awareness of common home safety issues and providing simple steps to minimize hazards, we can reduce the number of injury-causing incidents involving our industry’s products,” said AHFA Vice President of Communications Pat Bowling. “And that’s a win for everyone.”
After companies sign up to participate, they can access a toolkit with downloadable logos, social media graphics and more. There is no charge to use any of the Furniture Safety Week assets.
In addition to sharing simple ways to improve home safety, the campaign helps shine a spotlight on the proactive role the home furnishings industry plays in developing and maintaining effective product safety standards. Under the leadership of AHFA, the industry advocates for product regulations that provide the greatest degree of safety for the greatest number of American consumers.
“This work is especially important in light of recent budget cuts announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission,” Bowling added. “Funds previously earmarked for consumer information and education — including those supporting the CPSC’s ‘AnchorIt’ furniture safety campaign — are absent from the agency’s proposed 2026 budget.”
Although a CPSC spokesperson says there are no plans to eliminate the AnchorIt website, resources for promoting the site and the AnchorIt message are expected to be cut.
“Through Furniture Safety Week, the home furnishings industry is collaborating with consumer safety organizations, particularly those dedicated to protecting children, to fill the information gap and amplify furniture safety messages,” Bowling said.
Helpful Furniture Safety Week resources for participating industry partners, as well as for consumers, are available on AHFA’s Alliance4Safety website. AHFA launched Alliance4Safety in 2020 to provide insights and educational resources to help protect the health of home furnishings industry workers and to preserve their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic.
AHFA broadened the A4S focus in 2023 with plans to make the website a repository for a wide array of health and safety information related to home furnishings. A4S will continue providing useful insights for its industry partners in the event of any future pandemic but now also provides resources to help Americans maintain safe and healthy homes.
