Guest Anna Kolin is launching a new not-for-profit to offer support to veterans and first responders in northwest Ohio - The Inspired Lumber Project
Staying in Contact with London Mitchell
Guest: Anna Kolin, supporting vets and first responders
Let's take a few minutes to discuss a concern in our community of Northwest Ohio and introduce you to an individual who is working to do something about it. Staying in contact, I'm London Mitchell. My guest is Anna Coleman. She and her husband are launching a new not-for-profit to assist veterans and first responders. About a year and a half ago, my husband and I opened up actually a for-profit business called the Inspired Lumber Workshop. So the membership-based woodshop and creative space in West Lito, where people can come in and learn how to use power tools safely and properly, use learn the benefits of them, and then learn the skill, okay, of woodworking. We knew going into the process of creating Inspired Lumber Workshop that we wanted to provide services to veterans, because it was something that meant a lot to us. We're not about to ourselves, but we have family members who are, who their service has meant a lot to us, and we just have a deep appreciation for what veterans do, in just in general. So we knew we wanted to reach that, but we weren't exactly sure what that looked like. Within a couple of months, we started having some conversations with Lucas County Veterans Services Commission and then another small nonprofit in Toledo called Christian's Corner Foundation, whose their mission is to provide services to veterans that ease the mental health and PTSD issues that so many vets are left with once they leave their service. And so we started talking about potential programming that we could do that would use woodworking as a vehicle to provide access to veterans, to provide them at mental health benefit. We're not therapeutic. I can't say that we're therapeutic because we haven't done the clinical piece to that, but woodworking is logically therapeutic. There's a lot of benefit that goes into it, but we can't technically say that because we just haven't gone through the clinical piece of that. But it's just logical. When you take the time to measure, cut, plan, design, and then move through the process of actually taking that piece of raw wood and sanding it and cutting it and doing everything you need to create a project, there's a lot of benefit that comes with it that is therapeutic. So when we started down this path of creating this program, we knew that it would, we felt very comfortable that it would be beneficial, obviously to vets. And in our pilot year, which we had in 2024, we just finished the last of the pilot program, it was extremely well received, very positive, and we're excited to move forward with it. And it was about halfway through the year that we realized that we could do so much more if we brought it in under our own umbrella and created the nonprofit to expand it significantly instead of having to go externally through a third-party nonprofit. So that's what we did. So we created the Inspired Lumber Project, which is a nonprofit arm of what we do. We're completely separate entities but we facilitate the services through the workshop here. And so we kind of have both of these things kind of go in hand-in-hand, but it's been really, really good. We had significant success, like I said, with the first year of this, as far as our enrollment rates go, and it's exciting to see what the future holds with it. And you've also included first responders because you see this, what, this PTSD element? Yeah. So I have the great portion of serving on the board of directors for the Toledo Police Foundation. And so I spend quite a bit of time working with police, and I see some of the challenges and just in conversations that they've had. We have a neighbor, our neighbor is an officer, and he's the reason why I decided to make that jump to serve on the foundation for the police. And so when I think about the officers who are putting their lives, you know, specifically when we were going through COVID and watching, you know, I would wait for our neighbor to leave at night. And it was just saying prayers that he would be okay. There were so many things that they were going through. I thought what we're doing here could be easily transferable over to the officers and to fire any EMS in those who are out serving our community on a daily basis. So we're going to pilot the program in 2025 to first responders in hopes that we can continue to grow that as well. How are you thinking about doing your outreach so people know about you? So we did most of, well, actually we did all of 2024 just through word of mouth. You know, we'd have veterans because there's, if I know the statistic correctly, there's approximately 90,000 veterans within the Northwest Ohio, Ohio, Southeast Michigan region. We only had 46 vets go through and each of those vets told other vets. And so conversations really were the catalyst for most of those vets coming in. You know, we'd have a lot of people who would just come visit the workshop because they were curious about what we're doing here. We haven't really done any marketing either for our business piece of it because money has just been extremely tight as, you know, you start a small business and while you want to have money for marketing, it's usually not available. The word of mouth has been significant for us on both the for-profit and the nonprofit side of this. So we anticipate, you know, we have great connections within the community, both on a personal and professional basis. And so working through Lucas County Veterans Services Commission, who were the primary funders last year, they are, you know, we're posted on theirs as one of the resources for vets to be able to participate as a benefit along with hooves, little blessings and some of those other ones that provide the equine therapy. Outside of those, there's not a whole lot of other opportunities for vets from a leisure perspective or, you know, from that therapeutic beneficial type of perspective. So we're hoping to be able to get some decent traction that way just by, you know, utilizing those VFWs, American Legion, you know, the social groups for most of the vets and then, of course, through Lucas County Veterans Services. And then with us, too, we'll be able to start promoting and doing some marketing within us. But we're looking at increasing to about 200 new veterans, 50 returning veterans and 20, from those who have already gone through the program so they can take, like, a 2.0 class, whether it's lathe work or inlays or whatever that next iteration of it is, and then piloting the program to the first responders at about 50 people or 50 first responders next year. But our goal is to dramatically increase this. So the faster we grow, the sooner we can actually increase the space and provide an extra workshop that is specifically for those individuals. You've mentioned that you've had several dozen already go through the program you offer. What have you noticed in the way of commonality? As far, so commonality, they're all veterans, obviously. We have seven branches, so, obviously, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard Reserves, and Coast Guard. They're all, you know, we've had people from all of the different branches who have been a part of this. Let me talk differences first. So we have had all ages. We've had people who have literally just come out of the service and they're looking for potential job opportunities, so we can teach them those skills. We've had our oldest veteran, it was 86, and still comes in regularly, which is wonderful. We've had men, women, all races, all ages, I mean, it's been wonderful to see those differences, but the commonality between them all is that they served our country, and they all have those experiences that we as civilians don't have. And so we make an important piece of this is that vets are always with the vets. So even moving into next year with first responders, they will be in a separate class. Veterans will be with veterans only. First responders will be with first responders only, but what we find is that there's such a desire for them to help other vets, that, you know, even if, let's say, a vet misses a class and they need to get caught up. You know, things happen, right? Life happens. You get sick, you know, whatever it might be. So many misses a class, even though our job, my husband's job is to instruct and to teach them nine times out of 10, those other vets in the class will say, hold on, we got this, and they'll take them and they'll show them and get them caught up. So there's this camaraderie and this inclusion within the veterans that way outweighs anything else that we're doing. That's really the purpose. Woodworking is the vehicle, but the camaraderie and the program in and of itself is what we're trying to do, which is to bring those veterans together. I have four sons and certainly I don't want to see any of them go into battle or warfare, but two of them did, you know, join the military. I, myself, am a vet, I often think that because we've eliminated the draft and we don't have as many volunteer, non-volunteers going into the military, that we don't have that common understanding of what it means to appreciate what a person who has served in the military has gone through, has experienced. So I find it interesting that you who have not been in the military, you seek to understand it. And why? Yeah. Well, first and foremost, thank you for your service and to your children who have stepped up. Yeah, neither one of us have served by husband or I, but we, I have three family members. In fact, we're in the midst of creating a plaque that is our reason on why we do this. My grandfather served in the Air Force during World War II. My uncle served in the Army during Vietnam and had a very difficult time coming home. Brings tears to my eyes when I talk about it. So he, he struggled really hard upon coming back and it really changed him as a person. And he had a son or he has a son. He passed my uncle passed away about 10 years ago and my cousin was his son during the Air Force and became a pair of jumper and which is the high up elite group within the Air Force. Of course, I'm sure you knew that, but, and so he served twice. He went back through when 9/11 happened, he went back through and went, you know, re enlisted, went back to the training again, became a pair of jumper again. And he was involved in a pretty significant, pretty notable mission that makes him in my mind, an absolute true American hero. So he was depicted in the movie The Soul Survivor, which is the one about Marcus Lutrell in the Afghani, or the Navy SEALs that went into the Afghan village all but the one passed away. And Marcus Lutrell was that one and my cousin was one of the two who went in and retrieved him from that village and from that hut. And so he is depicted in the movie, he is an amazing guy. He is now out in Scottsdale, Arizona, I believe it is, and he went on to become a cardiothoracic surgeon, now owns his own men's health clinic out in Scottsdale. So I see what they went through and the impact that serving in the military have done to them, each of them in their own different way. I remember when my uncle was nearing the end of his life, he had said to me at one point that he was shot down three times during Vietnam and he survived all three. He said the reason he survived was to have his son, sorry, this is what it does. That was so impactful to me because he truly became an American hero. So he's my reason, sorry for the tears. And you're speaking from the heart and I think that's great, really. So when you bring the vets together, what are they talk about? So I'm not typically in there a whole lot, I get to do the beginning and end and the communication and the warm fuzzies, but when they're in there having those conversations, it's typically my husband and one of our other woodworkers who, and we have a couple of veteran volunteers who actually lead the program, so I wish that I could be more of a fly on the wall in there to hear exactly what they're talking about, but oftentimes they're speaking a language to each other that even the civilians who are in the room don't understand. They're having conversations that are above and beyond what we know. Our purpose is to bring them what the service is, but what they talk about is really amongst them because it's not something that we have ever experienced ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense. There's certainly talking about woodworking, they're talking about the act of doing and learning the hobby and the skill, but what they're actually experiencing between each other and that camaraderie and that closeness that they have found within the program is again, it's something that we've never experienced ourselves. If someone wants to find out more about your efforts or you're not for profit, how can they do that? So we have a website dedicated to the project. It's called inspiredlumberproject.org. They can go to that website, learn a little bit more about what it is that we do collectively as the project. So it's not just that that's in the saluted carpentry program, which is the specific program that the veterans can go through, but we also have some additional funding where we're trying to raise some additional funding to provide access for others as well. So individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, neurodiversity, and then also children to be able to provide woodworking skills to kids, scouts for each, those types of things. So we're really not limited to just that, but the keystone program that we do is the saluted carpentry. And so that is really paramount in the project's website, so again inspiredlumberproject.org. You can go there, learn more about it, see photos of the vets who have gone through the program. And then it gives a little bit more information about the other areas that we're serving as well. Emma Coland, stepping up to help our vets and first responders. I'm London Mitchell, inviting you to join us next week as we continue staying in contact. Previous episodes of staying in contact with London Mitchell are available on Apple podcasts, Amazon podcasts, Podbean, the suite 419 app, and London Mitchell.news. [MUSIC PLAYING]