EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: Building a Second Chance

LELAND, NC (WWAY) — Addiction is a monster. It’s not so easy to be productive again after hitting rock bottom because doors don’t exactly open easily when you have a troubled past.
But we found a guy in Leland who is building a second chance. He helps in a unique way and that makes him our Extraordinary Person of the Week.

“This stuff, this stuff came from Wisconsin,” Lou Purin said of the wood he uses to build furniture.

Off the main roads of Leland is a mission.

“To get it started, we had to start with something simple, bunk bed,” Purin said.

A mission that builds a second chance.

“We cycle guys through for about a year or so,” Purin said of hiring men with a troubled history, “we bring them in, teach them a trade that they more than likely never had anything to do with in the past.”

Lou Purin moved to Brunswick County to retire after years of work in the construction industry. By chance meeting, an idea of helping men with addictions was born, Anchor Wood Products.

“The best thing to come out of it is even if they don’t use the trade, is they get some sense of security and self worth, becasue they fell confident they can do something again.”

“We built this for a fundraiser,” Purin said as he showed Daniel Seamans an example of a box his current transition crew made, designed to look like the home the men live in.

“This will be the back of a bench, this was a single bed,” he added. They often re-purpose wood to give it new life. Kind of fitting, considering he is helping give new life to men trying to better their own lives.

Make no mistake, Purin and his crew create beautiful, custom made furniture. But in the process, they are building a second chance.

“They need a spring board to get a start,” Purin said, “and then from there, once they get their confidence, they can start knocking on doors and we’ve seen that happen over and over here. We know that it works.”

And that kind of mission is extraordinary in itself. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

“This is how it starts out, all rough, we clean it, machine it, end up with something like that, which in turn turns into something like that,” Purin said as he described the wood working process.

Purin is putting the finishing touches on some diaramas that will be seen around the Cape Fear. His company was awarded the contract to build 5 of them for Fort Fisher.

Lou Purin builds things. Some are made of wood. Others are made of second chances….and that, is extraordinary.

To learn more about Lou and Anchor Wood Products, click here.
You can find their facebook page here.