our Mission

Our mission is much larger than just building heirloom quality furniture. Our why is teaching and changing the lives of our veterans. Giving back to those that have given so much by teaching tomorrow’s craftsmen through different apprenticeship programs like the Department of Defenses’ Skillbridge Program and Special Operations’ Care Coalition. We have recently added our first woodworking course ‘Presence in the Woodshop’ to our offering by partnering with two incredible nonprofits, The Station Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project. This course is not just another ‘Woodworking course’ but hopefully a way for equip each participant with the know how to use woodworking as a form of art therapy if you would. Please read the testimonial below by our founder/CEO Patrick Ryan and know that every purchase you makes goes back to helping us help more of the men and women that have fought for our freedom.

Human emotions, as complex as they appear to be, can be narrowed down to two main categories. Positive and negative. Fear and faith.  The interesting thing is both fear and faith are invisible, and you get to decide which one you want to focus on. Some of us just forgot how and are stuck in a loop of fear based/negative thoughts. Fear can be broken down again into two more categories,  anxieties (the fear of not knowing what’s going to happen in the future) and depression, (the fear of not having something that you had in the past). That is where presence comes into play. The power of NOW. It’s what some call the flow state. It’s the gateway to changing your thoughts, your emotions, your life. To subconsciously say I’m not going to worry (fear) about tomorrow or yesterday and have faith that the present moment will lead me to where I’m supposed to be in life.

Easier said than done right? Wrong. There’s something really simple to this art therapy that we call woodworking. 10 years ago I was personally in a low space. I stumbled upon the meditative act of furniture making and self-development/psychology at the same time. And through the thousands of hours of using 4/5 of my senses (you don’t “taste” wood) to build furniture it’s given me the ability to recognize, change my focus,  and shorten that period of fear in my head when it arises. But that’s not all.  It helped me realize my past doesn’t define who I am. We truly are the creators of our future. Just like imagining a cutting board before being built, we have the ability to imagine and create how we want our ideal life to look. That ability is the first step that we MUST take to rewire our brains.

This is where the “presence in the wood shop” woodworking course comes from. Growing up and living in Virginia Beach I’ve admired and respected not just our military but in particular the most elite among them, our SOF members.  Between personal friends in that community and participants in our skillbridge apprenticeship, I’ve become more and more aware of the serious level of mental health challenges that our servicemen are facing. And feel called to take action to do my part in giving back.

That decision to give back was made at a Tony Robbins event in which I was able to share this story with him and the crowd. Tony, graciously contributed funds to the first course for materials that helped us purchase two gorgeous black walnut slabs that we were able to have the first five SOF students build a table with. A table that will be auctioned through the Station Foundation with intent of using the money raised to provide even more classes for our service members, to purchase more tools to run the classes more efficiently, and to be able to send tool kits home with the retired guys through the program so they can continue this therapy on there own personal time.

Sincerely,

Patrick Ryan