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STURGIS, S.D. (AP) — Jamey and Amber Nehring are all about salvaging old wood and turning it into new and useful things and helping to rebuild lives.

That’s what they do.

Even the name of their Sturgis woodworking business, Renatus, is based on the Latin word for reborn.

“This is both our name and mission as we give old wood a new lease on life, and also as we look to bigger things,” said Amber Nehring, in announcing Renatus Woodworks as one of eight statewide recipients of a two-year Dakota Rising Fellowship, which includes $10,000 and mentoring to put the funds to good use.

Jamey had always had a knack for woodworking. Prior to marrying Amber in 2012, he had built a queen-sized bunk bed with a closet under it.

Jamey was living in a 400-square-foot (37-sq. meter) apartment. He and Amber were engaged and he knew she would be moving in after they were married.

“We needed a place for her to put all her clothes and all her stuff,” he said.

A friend saw the bunk bed on a Facebook post and told Jayme he should venture into the furniture-making business. Jamey, then working for a contractor, decided to build his own business.

His first projects included a toy chest that looked like a Minecraft chest for his nephew and a doll crib for his niece.

He then made a coffee table for a fundraiser in Lead and a pedestal for a friend’s taxidermist business. Jamey was also commissioned to build furniture, countertops and other projects from reclaimed wood for Campfire Coffee in Deadwood, the Rapid City Journal reported .

The proceeds from the Campfire jobs allowed Jamey to invest in new tools, but from that point the couple decided their fledgling business needed to accomplish bigger things.

They decided to donate 50 percent of any profits to organizations that are about saving lives, such as orphanages in Africa or elsewhere. “It’s where we felt led,” Jamey said. “We’re doing this on lots of prayer and lots of faith.”

The Nehrings initially located their business in a former gasoline and service station on Lazelle Street in Sturgis.

“We had driven by there many times. When it finally sold we went and talked to the guy who bought it and asked if we could rent it,” Jamey said.

The front of the station was what Amber described as “itty-bitty.” They quickly overwhelmed the space.

“At the time I remember I only had a couple things to put in it,” she said. “Then, after a year of being set up in there we were just bursting at the seams.”

Sturgis Economic Development Director Pat Kurtenbach helped them find a bigger space. The new location, the old Dakota Mill & Grain company building on west Main Street, offered yet another chance for a renewal.

Dakota Mill & Grain closed its doors in 2012. The owners of the elevator said at the time that the building, dating back to the 1940s, has outlasted its useful life, and that repairing it would be more costly than it was worth.

But the Nehrings saw the potential. They rented the building, and after receiving the go-ahead, have slowly been renovating. An expansive showroom area even allows them enough space to seek other vendors for an area of downtown ripe for further rebirth.

“With the new laundromat and Indian Motorcycles, we believed this could be poised to be a new area of town,” Amber said.

Along with furniture building, Renatus does general contracting, exterior staining including fences, decks, and cabins, and reclaiming barn wood.

They currently have between 35 and 40 barns to tear down across the state for refurbishing and creating wood furniture.

“We don’t pay for (the barns). We offer to tear them down and clean up the mess in exchange for the material,” Jamey said.

They employ two full-time carpenters. One builds picture frames from reclaimed barn wood, which are sold to old-time photo tourist shops in the region.

Dakota Resources, a community development fund certified by the U.S. Treasury Department, raises money for small businesses through a capital investment fund that augments revolving loan funds for local development projects.

Dakota Resources President Beth Davis said selecting this year’s fellows from an impressive field of candidates was difficult.

“Our new class of fellows comes from all across the state with vastly different backgrounds. We are confident these rural entrepreneurs are going to do great things for themselves and for their communities,” Davis said in a release.

In applying for the fellowship the Nehrings first had to prove their business was rural-based and not in Sioux Falls or Rapid City, and they had to submit a business plan.

After making the final 12 candidates, they interviewed with Dakota Rising officials in Watertown in October. From that they were selected to be fellows in the program.

The fellowship includes business mentoring throughout the program.

“We’ve taken our business as far as we could take it on our own. For the business to continue to grow and prosper, this opportunity will make a world of difference,” Amber said.

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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com