Furniture Maker Benefits Children

SEATTLE

For years, wealthy developer James Youngren has nursed a small, rustic furniture company with one goal: to generate profits for a charitable foundation working to prevent child abuse.

The furniture-maker, Chicken & Egg Productions, has received plenty of media hype along the way but has not returned a dime to the charity, Children's Trust Foundation.

But now, thanks to a contract with Eddie Bauer Inc. and expanded retail sales in Seattle, Chicken & Egg is on the way to its first profitable year since its inception in 1985.

Youngren says Children's Trust and a new nonprofit partner in the furniture venture, Cities in Schools, will split Chicken & Egg's expected $100,000 to $200,000 profit this year. For Youngren, it is a verification that a for-profit business can support social projects.

Youngren is better known as a co-founder of Cornerstone Development Co., which helped develop Seattle's waterfront.

In 1987 he sold his Cornerstone stock and is now associated with Westgroup Partners, Westgroup Hotels and Pat Coulee in developing hotels and mixed-use projects in the Northwest and Florida.

Youngren, who lives on Orcas Island, says the market is catching up with the rustic-style furniture that Chicken & Egg makes.

The furniture is made by stripping the bark from 40- to 50-year old Douglas fir saplings, drying the wood, then fitting it together with mortise and tenon joints. The pieces are rubbed with beeswax, which gives it a slightly shiny, natural look.

The saplings form beds, chairs, tables, benches and store display racks. The wood comes from Orcas Island and the Olympic Peninsula, where several out-of-work loggers are paid piecemeal to provide stripped poles.

The pieces are assembled at a small factory near the Kingdome. This summer, Chicken & Egg has hired four "at-risk" students from Rainier Beach High School to help make the furniture.

Youngren helped form the Children's Trust Foundation after hearing stories about abused children from his sister, who had worked at Harborview Hospital, and after his work on the Washington Council for Prevention of Child Abuse. The foundation has supported several projects to counsel abusive parents and has organized conferences, task forces and research projects.

"We have to intervene to break the cycle of abuse," he said. "Once the abuse occurs the damage is done, and the cost to our society is staggering."

The trust has been supported by private donations, but Youngren formed Chicken & Egg with $700,000 of his own money to raise cash for the foundation.

"It's the responsibility of the private sector to get involved," he says. "It's pretty obvious government is not solving the problems."

Chicken & Egg initially sold furniture to hotels, but in 1990, Youngren opened a retail store called Nido, near the Seattle Aquarium. The store proved to be too pricey for the location, so Youngren closed it and reopened it just last month.

Now called The Great Northwest, the store features locally made crafts and Chicken & Egg's furniture, renamed Great Northwest Furniture. Retail sales are picking up, and this year the company got a $170,000 contract to build display racks for Eddie Bauer stores. Eddie Bauer may buy more display racks in coming years and is also considering carrying the furniture in its mail-order catalogs.

Other mail-order companies are showing interest, too. Chicken & Egg is now also affiliated with Cities in Schools, a national nonprofit program which coordinates support services in schools.

Burton Chamberlin, director of Cities in Schools in Washington, says his organization will share Chicken & Egg's profits while giving the furniture a national exposure through word-of-mouth marketing.

Youngren says he hopes Great Northwest Furniture will have sales of up to $2 million by 1994.