Hopes and dreams in reclaimed materials

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Last week, six teams with faith-based business plans presented their ideas in the finale of the challenge, with the top three teams splitting $10,000.

The goal of each plan is positive societal change.

With the seed money for claiming a top spot, the hope is that some of these teams will launch their social ventures into reality.

The winning team, Hometown Hope, is doing exactly that.

Founded in rural Maryland in 2013 by Trevor and Skylar Felkner, Hometown Hope uses reclaimed materials such as pallets and old barn wood to create rustic furniture. The company works with the Westminster Rescue Mission in Carroll County, Md., where it teaches the carpentry trade to men at the mission to help create the furniture.

The Felkners recently partnered with friend Craig Bowen, a Messiah senior who is majoring in business administration, and the business plan was entered in the challenge.

With $5,000 in hand, Hometown Hope wants to purchase a drum sander to cut production time, which should boost profit margins, Bowen said.

“We’re trying to find more donors and more outlets to sell the products,” he said.

The long-term goal is having a retail location and design studio where customers can come in and design a custom piece, Bowen said.

“And hopefully all these mission guys will be full-time employees,” he said.

Currently, five men at the mission are helping Bowen and the Felkners with this company.

The friends come from a construction background, as their dads have their own companies. That helps them secure some of the materials needed to make the furniture.

They predominantly source materials around Westminster and into the Baltimore area.

“Half a billion pallets are manufactured in the U.S. each year. And thousands of homes and barns are torn down,” Bowen said. “There is a huge surplus of material dumped in landfills.”

Each Hometown Hope product has a branded logo. And each item purchased comes with a special hands and material certificate that describes the materials used and where they came from, as well as testimony from the person who built the item.

“One of the dreams of a guy there is to attend college,” Bowen said. “The proceeds will help him reach those dreams.”

In addition to the Maryland market where they live, Bowen said the potential is there to sell or make the products locally, either in Lancaster or the Gettysburg areas.

“We’re in the middle of Baltimore, Lancaster, Gettysburg, Frederick and Washington, D.C.,” he said. “Our long-term goal would be to take this model and work with another rescue mission.”

Good job, Messiah. Way to tap the entrepreneurial minds of tomorrow’s leaders.