JEFFERSON TWP — Concordia Lutheran Ministries Haven I resident John “Jack” Brown, 87, has long made Christmas ornaments and toys for UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

But his latest projects will decorate the yards in front of each of Concordia’s five buildings along Marwood Road.

Brown has been busy constructing Nativity scenes for each of the lawns since June at the request of Loraine Vantine, Haven I resident coordinator, and Connor Hagey, Concordia director of independent living.

The Nativity scenes will be replacements for Concordia’s previous holiday decorations, where were lights on the buildings’ porticos that were difficult to put up and kept falling down.

The scenes are made out of plywood and feature the stable and manger, Mary and Joseph, two lambs and a star.

“It’s about 4 feet wide, a maximum of 6 feet tall and 30 inches deep, and made so the fencing holds it up,” said Brown. “It takes 10 pieces to make up the set.

“They’re made that they hook together, and we have wood screws in it. We have the pieces marked so they can be taken apart and set up in other years,” said Brown. “They come apart very easily. Everything should line up because of the numbering system we used.”

Nearly three years ago, when he moved into Haven I, Brown began working in the building's wood shop with its lathe, table saw, band saw and sander.

However, the former excavating contractor wasn’t able to use his usual tools when it came to assembling the Nativity scenes.

Brown said he researched patterns to use in building the decoration and settled on a two-thirds life-size edition, which could be then traced, using carbon paper, onto either 4-by-8-foot or 4-by-4-foot sheets of plywood. “I started cutting them out in June and July,” he said.

Because the plywood sheets were too big to feed into the shop’s band saw, Brown had to place the sheets on two sawhorses and cut out the traced pieces with a handheld jigsaw, a tedious process that he estimated took about eight hours for each Nativity scene.

Not that he would work more than two hours at a time. “My legs would get tired and my feet would get sore,” Brown said, conceding that time had taken its toll on his stamina.

“Us old people don’t want to test our bodies. They just won’t take that stuff anymore,” Brown said.

Once the 10 pieces per scene were cut out, Brown was able to use a power sander on each piece to get it ready for painting.

“The last step was painting. I used a good, outdoor paint,” he said.

Brown said Concordia paid for the plywood and paint, and he got help with the project from fellow Haven I resident Earl Mowery and Haven II residents Clyde Leri and Carl Firle. The three men put together all the wooden Nativity sets featured on the Concordia property.

“I am humbled Concordia has such dedicated volunteers who not only enjoy fixing furniture and helping their resident neighbors but also give their time and talents to Concordia as well. We are truly blessed to work and serve alongside them,” said Hagey, the director of independent living.

Once the scenes are set up on the yards, they will be illuminated with flood lights so they can be seen by passing vehicles.

Brown said the assembly of the Nativity scenes wasn’t without a few missteps. For instance, the stars on some, but not all of the scenes, have glitter.

That was a failed experiment, according to Brown. “It wasn’t working out right,” he said. Despite applying many coats, the flakes were too small and didn’t reflect the light well.

“It wasn’t worth the time. It just didn’t go according to plan,” he said.

The process drew some attention among the Concordia community.

“The ladies in the office kept following along. They were very excited about it,” said Brown. “They had no idea how they were going to turn out, and I didn’t either until they were finished.”

The Nativity scenes are just the latest project in a hobby that Brown began by chance in 1995.

As co-owner of Earth Works for 40 years, Brown did excavation work for small commercial projects.There was a lot of scrap wood left at the construction sites.

Brown collected the scraps and was wondering what to do with the wood. Brown had taken wood shop in high school, where he learned to use a lathe, so he bought his first lathe and began wood turning.

After a lot of trial and error, Brown began making candle holders that he would give away to his relatives.

As he got more interested in this hobby, he began to go to schools, such as the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and joined wood-turning groups on the internet.

Brown belongs to several of the groups now, including the Butler Area Wood Turners, Wood Turners Anonymous and the American Association of Wood Turners.

He said he interacts via Zoom with wood-turning groups across the country and in Canada and Australia.

“I just liked it. I liked the tools and everything. I did a lot of research,” Brown said.

He started making Christmas ornaments and toys, which went to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

When he moved into Haven I, he began working in the building's wood shop and got the idea to make the wig stands for cancer patients from a virtual wood-turning club based in Louisiana with 120 members from all over the world.

Brown said he began making wig stands during the pandemic as a way to honor the memory of his wife, Dianne Brown, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2018.

“I’m still doing wig stands for cancer patients at Butler. My wife was a cancer patient,” he said.

The wig stands find homes with people who come to the salon at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, which partners with Butler Health System.

With the Nativity scene project completed, Brown still spends a few hours every day in the Haven I woodworking shop creating Christmas ornaments that will be delivered to two charities, Hosanna Industries and a Presbyterian church in Indiana, Pa.

“It’s just something that I like to do,” he said.