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Rebuilding Lives, One Chair at a Time
Photos by Dante Fontana
(page 1 of 2)
Ask anyone if God still gives people visions and you’re apt to start a lively discussion.
Ask Robert Thresher, and you’ll simply get the facts. “I was just relaxing on my porch and this image came to me like a painting,” he says. “I saw an old woodworking craftsman teaching his skills to others so they could earn a living.”
Robert, a tech company owner who already worked 60-hour weeks and hadn’t done any woodworking in two decades, had no doubt about what he was seeing and what it meant. He and his wife Mary set about building an organization that would teach woodworking skills to the unemployed – primarily parolees, veterans and the homeless – and empower them back to independence. That’s a lot of work to take on based on a vision, but the speed and ease with which things fell into place was extraordinary. They obtained a slew of equipment at no cost from a house fire, established a lumber Free Trade Agreement, and met a craftsman who trained Robert – at no cost – to build high-quality hardwood rocking chairs.
Those rockers became the centerpiece of God’s Work for Man when it launched in mid-2009. They sold the first one before it was even built while they were overheard talking about the idea. Currently, they produce about one chair every month. Each one fetches a nice price (about $4,000), which goes right back into the organization.
