Wood Shop Is Designed to Build Character as It Builds Furniture

Jemal Bailey stood in a cloud of sawdust and talked about his choices: jail or wood shop.

“If I wasn’t in this program I’d probably be sitting up in jail with my friends. This is the program for me,” said Bailey, 18, one of several participants in the Asian Neighborhood Design wood shop training program.

“This,” he said, showing off his armoire, “is my trophy.”

For the past 14 years, AND has been supplying “at-risk” youth with the tools to build a positive future.

“I feel like I’m accomplishing something,” said Shawnta Windom, 23. Before enrolling in the program, he was “hanging out and messing up. . . . But it’s over now.”

Each year, AND trains about 44 young adults who have seemingly slipped through society’s cracks. Of those who graduate, about 75% find and maintain steady employment. The national average for training programs is about 50%.

“High-risk youth reflect the future of our work force,” said Executive Director Maurice Lim Miller. “If we don’t start looking at the troubles of high-risk youth, we will have problems in the future.

“(We’re) trying to prove we can run a business and reach this population and they can be good workers,” Miller said.

Trainees work side-by-side for four months with Specialty Mills Products, AND’s professional wood shop, in part to provide trainees with a model for work ethics and what is expected of them in the working world.

Trainees are paid $4.60 a hour. They must punch a clock and are expected to meet the same work standards as the pros.

“I don’t feel we do our job unless we have a realistic experience,” said Zelda Saeli, director of the training program. “We provide an environment that is nurturing. Sometimes (we’re) the only nurturing people” in trainees’ lives.

Amid the buzz of a hand sander and the pounding of hammers, Bailey said he was both sad and excited about graduating.

“I’m not thrilled about leaving because I really like the shop,” he said, but he added that he was eager to apply his new skill to refurbishing old homes.

The shop’s finished products--armoires, bookshelves and night stands--are sold at discount prices to such places as low-income hotels, nonprofit substance abuse recovery centers and YMCAs.

Lim Miller said AND’s growth was a natural progression because of the wide variety and changing needs of at-risk youth and the low-income communities.

“We’re not looking to be the largest architecture firm, we’re not looking to be the largest builders,” said Lim Miller. “We’re creating a model.”

Recent graduate Dirk Isle said the program probably saved his life.

“I got tired of the streets. Two of my homeboys got killed,” said Isle, who graduated from the program last November and quickly found a job at a local lumber company. “It’s always nice to have a trade.”