Baboucarr Faal

Charity Builds for The Gambia

- By Collin Knoff

How did you get started woodworking?

As someone who studied engineering, my 9-5 isn’t remotely close to working with my hands or creating. Woodworking has given me that outlet to pursue my desire to create. I truly enjoy designing and planning projects, especially things I have never attempted. Maybe it’s the thrill of the unknown or the satisfaction of fi guring it out.

So, when my daughter was born she needed a dresser so I decided I was going to build one. I looked around the internet to see if it is something I could tackle on my own. By that time I had already accumulated a few tools from remodeling my house so I found the confi dence to build using a plan from Ana-White. com. During that time period, I also founded an organization called Together for Gambia (TFG) with a mission of tackling poverty in my birth country of Gambia. So I thought, what better way to marry the two passions of mine than to use woodworking as a means of fundraising for TFG by donating proceeds of my builds! Charity Builds was born!

Who were your mentors?

I don’t really have mentors, but I had Ana White plans to give me the confi dence and understanding that much of woodworking is strategically taking big pieces and cutting them into little pieces and then putting them back together. I know I’m oversimplifying it but, it just clicked. Oh and YouTube! A lot of credit goes to the woodworking community online!

What do you think is your best or favorite work?