Cherry Hill man starts effort building desks for students attending school virtually

As remote learning continues in parts of New Jersey, a Camden County man is hard at work to make sure that kids have a place to do their school work.

News 12 Staff

Dec 18, 2020, 5:57 PM

Updated 1,390 days ago

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As remote learning continues in parts of New Jersey, a Camden County man is hard at work to make sure that kids have a place to do their school work.
“I have a feeling I’m not going to be shutting down anytime soon,” says Justin Foley, of Cherry Hill.
Foley says that he has built over 40 desks so far. The father of two says that woodworking became a hobby and that he stumbled upon plans for a desk online and built one.
“Made it. Didn’t think much of it, and I put it out in front of the house and posted something on our local neighborhood’s Facebook page and within an hour, it was gone,” Foley says.
The Cherry Hill School District has been all-remote, except for a few weeks, since September.
Foley says that he didn’t realize how in-demand desks were and says that once he saw the need, he couldn’t stop building them. He started a GoFundMe to help offset the costs.
“A lot of people have been offering to buy the desks. And I’m just going to say, these desks are not for sale. But if you do want a desk and you want to offer something, please donate to the GoFundMe or some other way. It doesn’t really matter to me,” Foley says.
Foley says that the requests for desks continue to come in as schools remain closed. Each desk takes him about two hours of his free time to build.
“Knowing that someone can benefit from what I’m doing, it just makes it even better,” Foley says.
Foley says that he has had someone from Bergen County contact him to ask for help starting a similar project in that area.