Union Gospel Mission’s 118 Designs is turning Seattle gangsters into craftsmen

In a South Seattle workshop, stacks of reclaimed wood patiently wait to be turned into furniture. And the people who make the furniture are also going through a metamorphosis.

“I’ve been through gang life, I did that for a long time, you know,” 25-year-old Damari Hopwood said. “Probably like 10 years and I just kind of wanted change in my life. That’s why I really got with this program.”

The program Hopwood is talking about is Union gospel Mission’s 118 Designs, named after the 98118 zip code its participants live in. 118 Designs helps men transition out of gang life, and learn life and job skills while being paid for the work they’re doing. For a lot of these young men, this is the first real job and paycheck they’ve received.

“I didn’t even think about having a job,” Hopwood said. “I didn’t care to have a job. I was just hustling in the streets, you know, doing what I got to do to get money. So when I seen this opportunity I took it, because you can’t hustle forever.”

118 Designs director, Bobby Martin, has known Hopwood and the nine other men in the program since they were kids coming to Union Gospel Mission youth programs. He dreamed up the program to help make the South Seattle streets safer and to give the participants a way to do good.

“We do bible study at 11 o’clock everyday, we call it The Table,” Bobby said. “From there we do some job training, life skills training and everyday we work in the shop from about noon to 4 p.m., building furniture. Some of [the wood is] palettes, some of it’s out of homes that we helped deconstruct. But we make really cool, mostly outdoor, rustic furniture. Craftsmanship stuff.”

They sell the furniture, and the money earned goes straight into the paychecks of 118 Designs part-time workers.

“It was kind of hard at first,” Hopwood said. “I wasn’t used to getting up and having to be somewhere on time and stuff. I moved on my own schedule. So you know, when I got on this schedule it put some structure in me. But it was hard in the beginning, it’s still hard sometimes, I’m not going to say it’s easy. But, you know, I love it because I am doing something positive with my life now. I could be doing something bad.”

Ricky Jordan, 27, said 118 Designs changed his entire life.

“Where I was before I got to this program was Clallam Bay Corrections Center for an 11-year sentence for shooting somebody as a teenager,” Jordan explained. “I got out, I filled out 30 job applications and never got a job. I came to see Bobby and he offered me a job right on the spot. If I didn’t get that job that day then I would have gone back to that same person that led me to prison. So people like you would have been running. Honestly.”

Jordan is the only former gang member who has graduated from the program and is now a full-time employee, working with youth and his peers. He uses his paycheck to take care of his 13-year-old brother, and to take friends out for coffee if they need to talk.

Talking is a big part of the program, something that has helped 26-year-old Maurice Williams.

“We believe in ourselves a lot more,” Williams said. “A lot of us have been through things, and are still going through things that a lot of people can’t even imagine. But the fact that we’re getting through them, and we’re putting God first, I believe our possibilities are endless.”

Williams just returned to the program. He got out of jail a few days before this interview.

“But I’m doing my best to get out of that,” he said. “Everything’s a transition and sometimes it takes a lot more time for people to transition out of that than it does others. So I don’t want to fully say, ‘I’m not doing that no more,’ you know? Because I think I would be lying to myself and I don’t want to do that.”

Beyond bettering themselves, they all want to improve the neighborhood they grew up in.

“I love my town, I love where I’m from, so I gotta at least bring some positive to here, you know?” Hopwood said. “That’s what I feel like I’m doing right now. I’m helping out my community. That just makes me happy right there. That makes me feel like I’ve done something.”