April 8th, 2026
Welcome to our series, Spotlighting Wisconsin! This series spotlights arts organizations across the state (including some of our wonderful grantees), and showcases the amazing work they do in their communities, along with sharing the why, or what drives them as an organization to do the work they do.
Saint Maud's
Pence
Saint Maud’s is an educational organization with a primary focus on handicraft. Our flagship program is Slöyd at Saint Maud’s which is a transformative woodworking experience, meticulously tailored for students aged 5-17. Slöyd at Saint Maud’s is not merely about woodworking techniques; it's a comprehensive initiative focused on fostering character development during critical formative years. Widely endorsed by educational institutions, our program offers students a carefully structured, instructor-led path, emphasizing both craftsmanship and personal growth.
Slöyd at Saint Maud's is designed to be rolling and completely individual in format so that each student will gain maximum benefit from the program. Our student-to-instructor ratio is a maximum of 10:1 to ensure individual attention and safety.
In January of 2025 - thanks to the fiscal sponsorship of the Gogebic Range Health Foundation - Saint Maud's received a legitimately game-changing grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation. The funds we were awarded have allowed us to really dig into our community and cement our programming as a vibrant and integral park of the educational landscape here. We’ve improved our shop, trained 4 new instructors and purchased high quality tools and materials. Thanks to all of this, we were able to work with more than 700 Slöyd students over the last year. A few significant organizational partnerships were weekly afterschool Slöyd Bus programming at Hurley(WI), Ironwood(MI), Mellen(WI) and Wakefield (MI) School Districts; another year-long, weekly woodworking class with Iron County 4H kids (3 years running!), and two more semesters of bi-weekly Slöyd classes for the Superior Homeschool Co-op. We have plans in place to continue providing our services to these groups (and more) through 2026.
In May of 2025, we added the Slöyd Bus to our offerings. We purchased a decommissioned military transport bus, gutted it, cleaned it up and moved in. The Slöyd Bus allows us to take our program on the road with 10 workbenches, 2 instructors and all of the tools and wood the kids will need to experience our program at any location.
Classes on the Slöyd Bus are identical to what we've provided to scores of students in our shop since 2022, except now we can bring the experience directly to our community! Our bus is outfitted to work with 10 students at a time, with 2 instructors. Classes are open to any child age 5-17 (no prior experience required). Classes are 2 hours. The Slöyd program is designed to be ongoing. One class is fun - but ongoing attendance provides a more vibrant and meaningful experience to students.
We've been operating the Bus for about ten months. So far, we've welcomed over 700 students over about 90 classes in Iron, Gogebic and Ashland Counties.
We’re only just getting started.
Read the Slöyd Bus 2026 Strategy v1
Upcoming Events
Saint Maud's Mayday Open House!
May 1st: Beltane Celebration with food, fire and festivities.
May 2nd: Showcase • Kid Mart, at which young people can show and sell their creative works. • Slöyd Demonstrations by our instructors and students • Advanced woodworking Demonstrations by the 4H Woodworking students • Fibre Club exhibition and auction • Community meal and Bake Sale • Seed Exchange
