Lamon Luther

After the housing bubble burst in 2007, thousands of carpenters and other skilled craftspeople in the housing industry were left without work. Some of these people in Georgia formed a small "village" in the woods, where they could live without being bothered. But living in a tent city meant that they didn't have addresses, which meant they couldn't get work, and then had to remain in the tent city, trapping them in what felt like a hopeless cycle. Brian Preston found out about these men and felt that he needed to do something to help them. So he quit his stable job and started a furniture company, employing them as craftsmen to build unique pieces of furniture out of reclaimed materials.

The Lamon Luther Story from Lamon Luther on Vimeo.

Called Lamon Luther, it has given these men the opportunity to find their way back into a satisfying, supportive job as skilled and sought-after crafstmen, and allowed them to move out of the woods into a real home. Their story is wonderful (and the furniture is beautiful, too). (Be sure to give their website a visit, too!)