Birth of Benches in Durham

Duke’s Doing Good campaign helps a Durham nonprofit build sturdy seating for bus stops throughout the city

A group of young students carrying a wooden bench they built to a Durham bus stop.
Local school kids applied newfound woodworking skills to help build benches.

Ways to Do Good

This story is first in a series to show impact of the university’s employee-driven Doing Good campaign. Go to Doing Good for ways to support the effort.

On a recent Monday afternoon in downtown Durham, about a half dozen local homeschoolers gathered around a worktable at the nonprofit Bull City Woodshop.

The whirring sounds of a bandsaw released the smell of freshly cut wood that permeated the spacious building. They listened to instructions from several adult volunteers guiding them in an introductory level woodshop course.

The students were brand new to woodworking, but in Bull City Woodshop, hosting young people is nothing new. During the summer, a group of Durham Public School students participated in a similar course, accompanied by a heaping helping of altruism: They built sturdy wooden benches for local public transit stops.

The summer campers’ work was part of the nonprofit’s On the Bench program: Bull City Woodshop participants – in partnership with nonprofits Play NC and Bike Durham and with help from Duke University’s Doing Good campaign and Duke Health – have built nearly 50 benches that have been placed at Go Durham bus stops throughout the city.

Doing Good is Duke’s employee-giving effort to support a range of local community organizations – from college readiness to housing.

Bull City Woodshop founder Andrea Bowens describes herself as a “DIY level woodworker.” She started the nonprofit in part because she did not see opportunities for young people living in Durham to learn woodworking, and partly because her passion is working with teens and preteens.

“The curriculum is designed around … not just producing a project: You’re learning a specific tool, and you’re learning a specific skill,” she explained.

During the summer camp, Durham middle and high school students used their newfound skills to help adult volunteers. They built 14 benches, two each week, over a seven-week period.

Person sitting on a bench outside
The benches provide seating for transit riders.

A Doing Good $5,000 grant, along with $4,000 from Duke Health’s Building Healthy Communities program, allowed the schoolkids to attend camp free of charge and covered the costs of supplies, materials, staff time, overhead, snacks, drinks and truck rentals. The funds also enabled the nonprofit to host community workshops for adults.

“We have had over 80 adult community participants come help build benches during these free, one-day workshops,” Bowens said. 

There are more than 800 bus stops in Durham. Bowens said the goal is to build 290 benches by December of 2028, followed by an adopt-a-bench campaign. The campaign would permit companies, classrooms and even families to be responsible for the care and maintenance of the structures.

Bowens hopes that a public fundraising campaign through November will help reach their goal of nearly 300 benches at city bus stops.

Bowens said it was gratifying to deliver the benches with the students.

“Every time we go deliver a bench, there’s typically a transit rider there standing,” she said. “We had a guy with a walker, just standing there, who now has a place to sit. Somebody with a cane. It’s been amazing to see that.”

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