03/27/2024
It started with a bench.
It was the peak of the COVID pandemic and David Sampé noticed that it seemed like everyone in his Washington, DC neighborhood was doing a home renovation.
“I started noticing that they were throwing away beautiful pieces of wood and history of the neighborhood that was there before them and just disposing of it,” David says. “I started to collect the wood, and that’s when I decided I was going to build a bench... And I noticed how I felt when I was building that bench. And that’s when it clicked. I was like, ‘this is not just woodwork. This is in itself an act of mindfulness. This is meditation.’”
These were not new concepts for David, 49, who has been teaching workshops on breath work and meditation to students at Ballou High School in Southeast, D.C. for years. But when pandemic restrictions were lifted, he brought the idea of woodworking to his students.
“I brought this idea up … as a way to continue the work and to be able to reinvest in themselves and the neighborhoods they’re from,” David says.
The students would gather at David’s house in Mount Pleasant — a neighborhood that is rapidly gentrifying in DC. They collected wood around the neighborhood, went dumpster diving and started to build benches from the recovered wood.
Once the students started to build the benches and present them at local farmers markets, David says he noticed a shift happening, both in the perception of the students and how the students perceived themselves.
“ … the perception of these inner city youth toward the gentrified population changed,” he says.
David sees as a way to give back to a city that experiences gentrification in a way that he says is unique. The relationships they build through the meditative woodworking helps them in more ways than one.
“These are kids, they’re from the toughest part of this city,” David says. “It took a long time for me to see them smiling, for them to be interacting with people who are not from that culture, and for them to be accepted. Now it’s hard to get the smile off their faces.” (1/2) 📸 by:
