Woodworking Craft Helps Unemployed New Yorkers

Woodworker Scott Peltzer, director of Brooklyn Woods, teaches unemployed and working poor how to be a woodworker like himself for free. After finishing his masters and and putting his talent to use in woodcraft, he decided to help others less fortunate to do the same. At Brooklyn Woods, men and women are trained in an eight week cabinetmaking program. The programs develops self confidence and motivation. The workshop is filled with tools students learn to use: machines for sawing, shaping, planing, and notching wood, and for attaching hinges, and tools for installing the finished products into kitchens. Brooklyn Woods is also getting Green and has been using materials like bamboo,and domestic hardwooods supplied by companies that avoid practices like clear-cutting forests. Once program is completed woodworker graduates are given 2 year job assistance. More than 125 woodworking and construction companies have employed program grads, who now number about 300.