photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Addison Shockley, founder and CEO of Ready for Good Co., is pictured in the nonprofit's new discount furniture store at 708 Connecticut Street in late April 2023.

The phrase “some assembly required” doesn’t strike fear in me. I’m confident I will assemble some of it. But, in the end, it often leaves me bewildered. (Why did they send an extra bag of bolts, and why didn’t they say in the instructions that I was going to need this much duct tape?)

But for a group of youth in a local nonprofit, such assembly projects create a sense of empowerment. Soon, more youth are going to get a chance to feel that satisfaction, thanks to an expansion project that has taken place in East Lawrence.

As a bonus, Lawrence furniture shoppers may benefit too.

The local nonprofit is Ready for Good Co., a startup that we reported on in April 2022. Back then, the fledgling organization was operating basically out of an industrial garage in North Lawrence. Now, the organization is in legitimate retail space in East Lawrence, occupying the former home of the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store near Seventh and Connecticut streets.

By outward appearances, the space seems to be a discount furniture store. It certainly is. The showroom is full of dining room sets, couches, chairs, lamps, end tables and more. But the story gets more complex if you find out what is in the back room.

The store employs area youth who have been in the foster care system or the juvenile justice system. The youth fill a variety of jobs, but a big one is furniture assembly. Ready for Good gets multiple semi-loads of furniture per month, and most of it comes in boxes and pieces.

“Some of this stuff is a real challenge to put together,” Addison Shockley, founder and CEO of Ready for Good Co., said. “Some of these dressers are 70 pieces and take three hours to assemble.”

But the local youth tackle the project, learn some tool skills, learn the complexities of instruction reading, and probably have the same choice words as the rest of us about screw C fitting into slot J and other such commands that defy the laws of physics.

But, most of the time, the youth feel really good about what they have accomplished, Shockley said.

“There is something satisfying seeing something go from a box to a finished product,” he said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

The Ready for Good Co. discount furniture store is pictured at its new location at 708 Connecticut Street in April 2023.

The store now has a lot more space to put together, and ultimately sell, a lot more furniture. The new space at 708 Connecticut St. is more than twice as large as the store’s previous space in North Lawrence. Shockley is counting on the extra space and more visible location resulting in more sales because he already is planning to increase the number of youths the organization can serve.

Plans call for the number of youth completing the organization’s program to increase from 32 currently to 48 in the near future. The program involves 50 hours of paid work and training at the store. Youth accepted into the program get paid an hourly wage, get the benefit of putting a job on their resumé, and learn important soft skills, such as customer service and workplace communication, that can be applied in many careers. Shockley said they’re lessons any teen probably can benefit from, but they are critically important for those who are making the move from the foster care or juvenile justice system into adulthood.

“It is a difficult transition for anyone,” Shockley said. “But they are trying to make things work often on their own with little or no family support.”

Shockley said there have been some success stories of youth who have graduated from the program getting jobs at a local manufacturer or enrolling in classes at Peaslee Tech, for example. But he wished he heard more success stories, and mainly wishes he had a better way to keep in touch with the youth who graduate from the program.

He’s applying for a grant from the Kansas Department of Corrections that would allow the hiring of a “transition coach,” who would stay in touch with graduates to help them get their next career or education chapter started.

The grant also could be used for some peer mentor positions. Those positions would be filled by youth who have completed the 50 hours of work and training, but want to stay on board to help others get through the program.

“We hear a lot of them say they wish they could work here longer,” Shockley said.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The Ready for Good Co. discount furniture store is pictured at its new location at 708 Connecticut Street in April 2023.

Winning the state grant will be critical to creating those positions, but there’s something else that’s critical to the overall organization: people’s desire for affordable furniture.

The entire nonprofit is built on the idea that there will be enough Lawrence-area residents in the market for budget furniture. When Shockley first came up with the idea of a nonprofit that would help transitional youth, he went to the KU Small Business Development Center for assistance. It was there that the SBDC staff talked about the large gap in the Lawrence furniture market.

Lawrence residents buy huge amounts of furniture in other cities. SBDC officials theorized entrepreneurs largely haven’t stepped in to fill the gap in Lawrence because the upfront costs to starting a furniture store are high. But Shockley — who previously was a social worker who served kids in the foster system — won grant money to start the nonprofit, which helped with the upfront costs.

Plus, the store’s buying strategy helps. It largely focuses on a couple of types of furniture — returned items that furniture brands don’t want to restock or liquidated items that are part of a store closing or discontinuation of a particular line of furniture or product.

Ready for Good buys the furniture a truckload at a time — often at about $20,000 a truckload — and then tries to fill a unique niche in the market with its pricing strategy, Shockley said.

“We’ll look at an item we have and what it is selling for online,” Shockley said. “If it is selling for $100, we may say, ‘let’s try to sell it for $50 to $70.’ That makes us a middle-ground store. We are not a thrift store, but we are not a high end store, either.”

Thus far, it has been reasonably fertile ground to occupy. Shockley said the store has been profitable each month, and he envisions both growth of the store and the types of programs the organization offers youth.

“There’s really huge opportunity here,” he said.