Through woodworking, incarcerated SC youth learn skills for jobs and life

Yahoo

15-05-2025

Jordan Thompson, 16, holds a wood-carved duck at the Department of Juvenile Justice's Broad River Road Complex on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — The geese that fly across the Department of Juvenile Justice's long-term correctional campus inspired Jordan Thompson to start carving ducks out of wood.
Thompson, a 16-year-old from Anderson, was one of three boys at the department's Broad River Road Complex on Wednesday showing off what he made in a woodworking class meant to prepare teenagers for jobs once they leave.
Like many of the program's participants, he signed up because he needed an activity to fill his days after earning his GED diploma and found the work calming, he said.
When he's feeling homesick, he turns to his woodwork to soothe him. Along with the ducks, Thompson carves crosses as a reminder to keep faith in God, he said.
'I put my emotions into it,' Thompson said.
Thompson's ducks, alongside other student-made pieces of art and furniture, are put up for sale at the department's Store of HOPE, an acronym for Helping Others Prepare for Employment. The store also runs a booth at Columbia's outdoor farmers market, Soda City, about once a month.
All proceeds go back into the program, said Tonya Romriell, who has run the woodworking program for the past three years. Often, people walking through the booth at the market don't realize the art is student-made until someone tells them, she said.
'Every time, it's, 'Wow, kids made this?'' Romriell said.
The program began in 2007, when some youth at the facility used wood leftover from a project with Habitat for Humanity to build Adirondack chairs, said her husband, Neal Romriell, who runs the Store of HOPE.
In 2012, the store opened to sell what the teens had created. More than a decade later, Adirondack chairs were still among the common creations sold.
Many of the supplies for the projects come from donations, and the state pays the program's participants for their work, between $1 and $14 an hour, depending on their behavior. (They can increase their earnings by improving their behavior.)
Their earnings first go toward paying any court-ordered restitution they owe. The youth keep anything else they earn after they leave, according to the department.
Before the teens can join the program, they go through an interview process, just like they would to get a job outside the department. Participants must already have their diploma or equivalent certificate, so the work doesn't distract from school. No woodworking or other crafting experience is necessary, said Tonya Romriell, the instructor.
'It's a lot like a summer job, a first job,' Romriell said.
The number of teens in the program at any time can vary, from just a few to as high as 20.
Romriell doesn't expect the teenagers she works with to become master craftsmen, she said.
She does expect them to pick up basic life skills they can use in any job. For instance, she teaches the teenagers in her program how to resolve conflicts with colleagues, how to talk to authority figures with respect and how to shake hands with a potential employer, she said.
The youth also get the confidence of knowing they're capable of creating something people want to buy, Romriell said.
'It's the first time for some of them that they made something they can be proud of and brag about,' she said.
Creative control is left up to the youth, Romriell said.
Those starting out or unsure of what to make can use preset designs, but Romriell is open to anything her students want to make, so long as it's appropriate, she said.
Among the offerings Wednesday were wood-carved desk games, outdoor benches, cutting boards and decorative fish. Along with wood, the youth can work with metal, making Palmetto trees and wire words. Or, they can upholster furniture.
'They bring more to the table than I can even fathom,' Romriell said.
Like Thompson, 17-year-old Kayden Payton applied for the program will little experience.
The Abbeville teen always saw himself as a hands-on type of person, and he had once built a doghouse with his dad, so he was willing to give the program a shot, he said.
Payton started with a pre-designed Palmetto tree. He liked that, so he made more in different sizes, then moved onto signs that read 'HOME' and 'LOVE,' the Os replaced with the outline of South Carolina.
Address: 3208 Broad River Road, Columbia Hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday
The work distracted him from whatever problems he was having that day, he said.
'It eased my mind from what's going on around me,' Payton said.
The art is a reminder that people at DJJ's long-term facility are capable of making 'beautiful things,' no matter what they did to get there, Romriell said.
'Too often, we focus on what the boys have done and not what they're capable of,' Romriell said.