One of the great joys of working on a college campus is the opportunity to have students work with us in the Woodshop.
For the past two years, Isak Brandt ’26 has labored alongside us in the shop. As a student, Isak’s business was business, a Global Business Leadership major. In the woodshop he became a craftsman, a collaborator, and a student of the tactile. This past spring, he saw an opportunity to bring these two worlds together. He proposed an internship to Fr. Lew Grobe OSB, that would allow him to integrate his experience in craft with his training in business.
The idea was rooted in a real need. Many guests visit the Woodshop for tours every week, yet our welcome area and showroom remained only vaguely welcoming with not much to show - hardly an embodiment of Benedictine hospitality! Isak recognized the gap and proposed the creation of a showroom/gift shop: a space that would both welcome guest and offer them the opportunity to take home something made in the shop.
Working closely with Fr. Lew, Isak developed a more accessible payment system and reimagined how our work from the shop could be presented to guests. Crosses, urns, cribbage boards, and paintings by Fr. Jerome Tupa along with other regular items, are now displayed for purchase in a thoughtfully arranged showroom.
With only a few months before graduation, Isak set to work. He not only developed the business framework for the gift shop but also helped shape the physical space itself. Drawing on his experience as a student woodworker, he designed and built custom furniture to support the displays and create a more welcoming environment – including floating shelves and two large display cabinets, drafted and refined in collaboration with the woodworkers.
We are excited to open this newly outfitted showroom and invite you to stop by (both enter and exit through the gift shop) between 1:00 and 4:00 PM, Monday through Friday. Isak has also revamped our online store, making our work more accessible beyond the shop walls.
These cribbage boards bring a bit of Collegeville to your card playing. Pegs are included in their compartment on the backside of the board. Three different styles are available including Stella Maris Chapel, Lake Sagatagan, and the Johnnie Rat. Custom engravings are also available, contact for more details.
Also available for purchase in the Abbey Woodworking gift shop.
Isak’s portrait among the directors.
This week Isak began his next chapter as a member of the Benedictine Volunteer Corps, where he will spend the coming year serving at a Benedictine monastery in East Africa. We are deeply grateful for all he has contributed to the life of the shop, and proud of his generous decision to dedicate this next year to service.
In the week leading up to his graduation, Margaret Vos, a volunteer in the shop, created a framed photograph of Isak and hung it among the portraits of the shop’s directors. A small but meaningful sign of the mark he has left here.
We look forward to all that lies ahead for Isak, confident that the same care, creativity, and collaboration he brought to the Woodshop will continue to shape his path forward.
Special thanks to Tom Morris for photography.