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INSPIRED LUMBER
SALUTE TO
Build Skills. Find Community. Keep Building.
CARPENTRY
Salute to Carpentry is a six-week, hands-on woodworking program created for veterans and first responders. Participants learn the fundamentals of woodworking in a welcoming, working woodshop alongside others who understand the value of service, teamwork and showing up for one another. No woodworking experience is required.
MORE THAN A WOODWORKING CLASS
Salute to Carpentry begins with woodworking, but what happens around the workbench is just as important. Over six weeks, participants learn to safely use woodworking tools, work with real lumber and complete a project from start to finish. Along the way, they build confidence, develop new skills and become part of a community that continues beyond graduation. There is no expectation that you already know how to build. We’ll teach you.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Salute to Carpentry is a six-week fundamentals-based woodworking program with one four-hour session each week.
Participants learn:
• Woodshop and tool safety
• Measuring, layout and project planning
• Proper use of common woodworking tools
• Cutting, assembly and finishing techniques
• How to take a project from raw lumber to completion
Every participant works through the process alongside instructors and fellow members of the cohort.
Materials, instruction and shop access during the program are provided.
BUILT AROUND COMMUNITY
There is something different about working beside someone.
Conversation happens naturally. People help one another. Someone holds a board while someone else makes a cut. Mistakes become lessons. Projects begin to take shape.
Salute to Carpentry was created to provide veterans and first responders with a place to learn, build and connect without pressure or expectation.
For many graduates, the six-week course is only the beginning.
THE PROGRAM DOESN'T END AT GRADUATION
Graduates can remain connected to Inspired Lumber Workshop through continued opportunities to build, learn and serve.
Depending on available programming, graduates may participate in:
Continued Woodshop Access
Opportunities to return to the Workshop and continue building independently.
Salute to Carpentry 2.0
Project-based classes that allow graduates to build on the skills learned during the original program.
Build Team
Opportunities to use woodworking skills alongside other graduates on community and Workshop projects.
Build It Forward
Projects created with a purpose, giving participants opportunities to use what they have learned to benefit others.
The goal is not simply to complete a class. It is to create a pathway for continued connection.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
Salute to Carpentry serves eligible veterans and first responders.
Veterans
Veterans must have been discharged under honorable conditions. Verification through a DD-214 or other approved documentation is required before official enrollment.
First Responders
Eligible first responders must currently serve in a position that responds directly to emergency scenes. Employment verification may be required.
Submitting an application does not guarantee placement in a particular cohort. Participants are contacted as openings and funding become available.
THE COMMITMENT
Salute to Carpentry is intentionally designed as a six-week experience, and each week builds on the one before it.
Participants should plan to attend all six sessions.
We understand that life happens. One absence may be accommodated with advance notice, but participants should apply only when they are able to make the six-week commitment.
READY TO BUILD?
You do not need woodworking experience.
You do not need to own tools.
You do not need to know what you are doing before you walk through the door.
You just need to be willing to learn.
Applications are managed through The Inspired Lumber Project, the nonprofit organization that helps make Salute to Carpentry possible.
MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Salute to Carpentry is offered at no cost to participating veterans and first responders because of the generosity of individuals, businesses, foundations and community partners who believe in the program.
Funding helps provide instruction, materials, equipment, shop access and continued opportunities for graduates.
Want to help someone get started?
Your support of The Inspired Lumber Project makes the Salute to Carpentry program possible.
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THANK YOU!
ABOUT THE
INSPIRED LUMBER PROJECT
The Inspired Lumber Project is the nonprofit partner of Inspired Lumber Workshop.
Its mission is to create access to hands-on woodworking experiences for veterans, first responders and other individuals who can benefit from the confidence, connection and sense of purpose that comes from making something with their own hands.
Salute to Carpentry is one of the primary ways that mission comes to life.
