Introducing the STAR Youth Apprenticeship Program

Skilled Through Alternative Routes

There will never NOT be a need for upholstery.

Furniture will always need to be built, repaired, restored, reupholstered and kept out of landfills. But for those skills to survive, someone has to teach the next generation how to do them.

That’s why we’re launching the STAR Youth Apprenticeship Program — Skilled Through Alternative Routes, a new program at LullCo Design Studio for high school and early college-age students interested in exploring upholstery, furniture restoration and the skilled trades.

We’re incredibly excited to launch STAR with a $5,000 grant from Kiwanis and are now looking for individuals and businesses in our community to help us match that investment.

You don’t have to wait until you’re an adult to start.

One of the things we tell young people at LullCo all the time is:

You can learn a skill now that someone will pay you for now.

A teenager who learns how to sew a cushion, repair a chair, replace foam, recover a dining seat or restore a piece of furniture isn’t just learning a hobby. They’re developing a marketable skill.

STAR students will learn the craft, but they’ll also learn the business behind the craft.

We’ll show students what professional upholstery work actually sells for, how jobs are estimated, what materials cost, how labor is valued, how to communicate with customers and what it takes to turn a hands-on skill into income.

We want young people to see that skilled trades can offer more than a job. They can create opportunities for freelance work, entrepreneurship, supplemental income and eventually an entire career or business.

A student doesn’t have to wait for graduation, a college degree or someone’s permission to begin developing something valuable.

They can start building that skill now.

Skilled Through Alternative Routes

STAR isn’t about telling students that college is bad or that there is only one “right” way to build a future.

It’s about showing them that there are more routes than they’ve probably been shown.

Some people thrive in traditional classrooms. Others discover what they’re capable of when they’re given a tool, a problem to solve and something real to make.

STAR gives high school and early college-age students the opportunity to learn alongside working upholsterers and makers, use professional tools and equipment, work on real furniture and begin understanding both the craft and its economic value.

Who can participate?

Students don’t need previous upholstery experience, a portfolio or a commitment to pursuing the trade professionally.

To become eligible for STAR, a student simply needs to complete a project with us first.

That gives them an opportunity to experience the work and gives us an opportunity to identify students who are curious, engaged and interested in continuing to learn.

Sponsor a Student

Our initial $5,000 Kiwanis grant gives STAR a foundation. Now we’re asking our community to help us grow it.

Donations and sponsorships help provide participating students with instruction, studio access, materials, tools and hands-on experience without cost becoming the thing that prevents a young person from discovering a skill they may be exceptionally good at.

We’re seeking donor matches, individual sponsors and business partners who believe that investing in practical skills and the next generation of tradespeople is an investment worth making.

Every contribution creates more hours at the workbench, more projects completed and more opportunities for young people to discover what they can do.

The trades aren’t disappearing.

But they don’t pass themselves down.

Someone has to teach them.
Someone has to learn them.

And we’d like the next generation to discover that knowing how to make, repair and restore things isn’t just useful.

It can be valuable.

STAR — Skilled Through Alternative Routes

Sponsor a Student. Help us teach the next generation.

Having trouble finding what you’re looking for? I can source the furniture style and design you’re looking for. Follow these steps to finding the furniture of your dreams.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

1. Describe what you’re looking for.

2. Tell me your budget.

3. Customize with finishes and fabrics.

4. Book your project.