Help Wood Haven Workshop in Rebuilding After Damages

Hi, my name is Will and I'm a disabled veteran who is trying to keep his woodshop up and running after setbacks out of our control.

Outside of owning and operating Wood Haven Workshop, I help guide carpentry and cabinetmaking students at Columbus Technical College, work with Lowe's Foundation for skills-trade and its workforce gap, and a 1st place winner of the 2023 Georgia SkillsUSA Cabientmaking Competition.

Since starting Wood Haven Workshop over 2 years ago, we have worked to build it into not only a business, but a way to deal with issues, both physically and mentally for myself and our other owner.

We have used Wood Haven as a means to help ourselves, help others, engage and help other small businesses in the Columbus, GA area and provide not just business services but a leaning shoulder and self-help platform for others if and when they needed it, no questions asked. Our progress even caught the attention of the Lowe's Foundation and we have been working with them about the skills-trade workforce, the problems small businesses face, and how to overcome the workforce shortage of the trades.

We began in a 12'x20' shed in my backyard. Soon we started to outgrow the shed, so we moved to the garage, and finally into a commercial space. However, since moving, and as of December 2023, we've run into snags that has set us back to the point of not being able to work at all.

Our currently rented location has had 2 major incidents with the roof. Thankfully, insurance was able to help us out the first time, but not the second that occurred just this month. Our claim for damages was denied due to neglect and non-repair of the building from the party that owns the building (and has continued to not repair for more than 5 months now), causing parts of the ceiling to collapse, exposing mold and the outside elements to our wood and machinery. Our machinery, wood inventory, client's projects, and the general safety of our workspace has been reduced to nothing more than a pile that is just sitting while we try to figure out what to do next.

The amount of help that we are asking for isn't even close to the totality of damages, all we want is to get our stuff out of the building and into a new location so we can just begin to build back what we've spent in our own sacrifices. These funds will help us secure a new, and better kept, location, the fees for the business, and to help with the new build out since we lost a good portion of what we already owned.

Sincerely, and thank you,

Wood Haven Workshop