HIS Carpentry Shop (HCS) is a manufacturer of unfinished furniture, located in a 16,000 square foot manufacturing facility, employing six full-time and several part-time people. HCS was founded in 1991 as part of a vision God gave Set Free in Maine.

The overall mission of the Advisory Board for HCS is to be a model project for future HCS’s around the state. HCS provides many benefits throughout the surrounding communities. These include jobs, job training, and Maine made furniture. One of our markets is to wholesale our products to other ministries and organizations for their fundraising efforts.

Working together HCS and Set Free have developed a program allowing former inmates and substance abuse “graduates” a chance to learn transferable life and job skills, while earning a paycheck. This vocational re-entry program was started early in 1995, and it’s overall impact has been very beneficial. While learning a trade, they are also easing back into society as viable adults with the skills needed to live and work independently. Not only does this program give them the chance to learn woodworking and other business related skills, it also provides them with the opportunity to increase their self-worth and self-esteem.

The mission of HCS is to meet the unmet needs of low and moderate income people; to insure the well being of those in need by making available to them the options which meet those needs. These include, but are not limited to housing, employment, fellowship, spiritual enlightenment, counsel, and solid guidance. We are seeking to serve those in or just out of incarceration, the homeless, those involved with drugs and alcohol, those who are or have been in abusive situations, the unemployable, and those who are just plain lost and don’t know where else to turn.