ST PAUL, Minn. — A bird feeder in the bush is worth more than you might think.
Especially if that bird feeder started life in the hands of Paul Ramsour.
“This is where it started,” Paul says as he holds the small wooden bird feeder in the woodshop where its pieces were cut.
“My best estimate is we’ve made close to 100,000,” he says.
One hundred thousand feeders built over three decades have nourished more than birds.
“Long story, I was in foster care since I was 3," Kiva Wadley says as he preps bird feeder pieces for assembly.
“My mom was a drug addict,” he explains. “My dad wasn’t around.”
Some would call Kiva a young man at risk. But here at Elpis Enterprises, his title is intern.
“Elpis is a Greek word for hope,” Paul explains.
Paul founded Elpis to give hope to young people like Kiva who are exiting foster care, homeless or saddled with other challenges.
“This just opened new doors for me, new opportunities,” Tim Hale explains.
Tim was raised by a single mother of three boys.
“My dad was in and out of jail, so it was kind of hard,” he explains.
Tim is building bird feeder kits, too, while learning carpentry skills along the way.
“I like it,” he says. “Hopefully I can find a career out of it, that’s what I’m hoping for.”
Paul hopes so, too.
“Our goal really is to help kids be seen in the community for their skills and their knowledge, rather than defined by their needs,” says Paul, who started Elpis while affiliated with the Jaycees.
Over the years, the organization has spread its wings beyond bird feeders.
“Yeah, this is screen printing,” says Cordae Freeman, a paid intern in Elpis’ screen-printing shop.
Down the hall, sewing machines whir as other interns turn burlap coffee bags into shopping totes Elpis sells.
“I’ve learned a lot here for sure,” says Jesus Mancha, a 16-year-old alternative school student, who recently joined the bird feeder shop.
“My dad passed when I was 6. He wasn’t really in my life beforehand anyways,” says the Elpis intern.
Jesus could see himself as a carpenter, too, but other seeds are also being planted.
More than 60 times last school year, the bird feeder interns left the shop to share their skills with fourth graders.
A spring afternoon brought them to Sojourner Truth Academy, where Jesus, Tim, Kiva and other interns helped students with the hammers and nails needed to assemble the kits the fourth graders would take home as completed bird feeders.
The school visits are an opportunity for the mentees to become mentors.
“It’s a good skill to learn how to teach and to be able to show other people how to do things Jesus says.
“Right, it definitely is,” Tim adds. “It’s like being a leader.
The lessons paid off quickly for Tim and Kiva.
Not long after our visit, both young men put their shop skills to work as the newest employees of the Keller Fence company.
A kind of personal progress borne of a simple beginning.
Feeding feathered friends – and futures.
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