LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A nonprofit honors veterans with handcrafted chairs where they can sit and share their stories of sacrifice and service. Each chair is assigned a QR code with links to a video, so those stories can be passed down for generations to come.
Roy Adams, a 20-year Army veteran, started Chairs of Honor. Kris McGrew of Louisville joined the mission in 2022. He has made several chairs for veterans so far and is continuing to work on more.
For McGrew, Chairs of Honor's goal is personal. He is a U.S. Air Force veteran.
"I deployed to Iraq in Nov. 2003 until the spring of '04," McGrew said. "After coming home, I learned what I was capable of and also what other veterans who had been deployed had been through. Coming back to Kentucky after my service, I found it difficult to share that story with other people who hadn't been there."
"With an organization like Chairs of Honor and spending time with other veterans, I hope to share more of those stories with people who understand, who have been there and who hopefully have their own stories to tell."
The organization doesn't just benefit the veterans who receive a chair. It has also been therapeutic for the veterans who make them.
"When I first came home from the service, I found it difficult to connect to other people, especially when I started a civilian job," McGrew said. "I would go to the workshop and be able to at least keep my hands busy so I wouldn’t have to worry about any of the mental health stuff that was going on.”
Those who have a veteran they would like to nominate for a chair can fill out an application on Chairs of Honor's website. The organization sources donations to pay for the chairs and production of the video recordings to go along with each chair. Donations can be submitted online.
Seeing how this craft has helped his mental health, McGrew said he's going to start teaching woodworking classes at a Louisville Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post in hopes it can benefit other veterans.
"There are a lot of veterans who are not connected to the VA and miss out on a lot of services that could help them," McGrew said. "Hopefully, through Chairs of Honor and us doing classes at VFW, we will be able to also sit around and just talk about our military experiences and some of the things we are dealing with or maybe we just build a chair and have a good day."
The first set of classes will be April 27-28 at VFW Post #1181 (6518 Blevins Gap Rd.) in Louisville. Those who attend will assemble a post and rung stool as an intro to chairmaking, McGrew said.