LA City Blocks on the Cover of Brown Alumni Magazine 2019 Holiday Gift Guide
Would Works limited edition LA City Blocks made the cover of the Brown Alumni Magazine (BAM) this month. This year's annual holiday gift guide features alumni makers and alumni-run non-profits--and Would Works happens to check both boxes.
The LA City Blocks set was designed by Brown University alum and Would Works program director, Lee Buchanan. A furniture maker and designer, Lee ran the Offerman Woodshop where she was originally a happy customer of Would Works--often outsourcing wood products to be sanded and finished by Would Works artisans.
In 2016, with the help of Nick Offerman, Lee and Would Works founder Connor Johnson ran a crowdsourcing campaign to raise funds to scale up Would Works into a consistent weekly program with an expanded line of homewares. With support from Johnson and many people and organizations within the LA homeless services and craft communities, Lee has been running Would Works ever since.
Lee (left) and workshop leader Krys Shelley at the Would Works shop, 2018
See the full feature spread on the LA City Blocks below:
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Beyond woodworking, Nick Offerman highlights the “incredibly benevolent and warm humanism” at the heart of Would Works. "We're giving people … mental health, counseling, job counseling, life coaching. It's a place to say, 'Come on in, I see you, I care about you, I recognize the trouble you might be having. Here's a sandwich, here's a bowl of soup. Now, this is a hand plane,'" Offerman said.