Our goal is simple: to give inner-city teens the opportunity to learn by doing and to discover their own talents in the process. The Green Chair Project (GCP) employs inner-teens to build and sell outdoor furniture to the general public. All profits reinvested into the program to ensure its continued growth and success.

GCP is not simply a place for teens to earn money. It is a place that challenges them by getting involve in every aspect of running a business including customer service, marketing, production and shipping. Teens experience the challenges of meeting shipping deadlines, working as a team and mentoring new crew members. GCP provides an environment that allows them to develop valuable, marketable experience and skills that can easily be applied to their future, whether as artists or accountants.

We work with the theme of the Adirondack chair in many different forms, providing a source for practicing all of our skills; to learn from doing and making. We practice math as we measure, cut, stack and count. Multiplying formulas for working with scale and the accounting of our business.  Reading instructions, plans, schedules and notes from meetings.  Writing letters, developing flyers and learning how to translate information either over the phone or in person. 

We are physical in the use of our bodies as we carry, assemble and store our chairs. We practice the things one can't really see.  For example what happens when you give something away?  How will people react?  What is the benefit?  How do you feel when someone really appreciates what you have done - even sometimes enough to actually buy it from you! 

The Adirondack Chair is an American classic. There is something familiar with it and what it represents.  Our symbolic Green color certainly instills some sort of thought about the lives of the young people who's hands actually built them.

The Green Chair Project isn't simply about building outdoor furniture. It's about offering a chance for teens to build their own future.