South Georgia Casket Company recently sponsored a summer youth apprenticeship and Blackshear native Jayden Smith was the lucky student selected for the opportunity.
Smith, 14, spent his summer learning everything there is to know about woodworking and the fine art of casket making.
Currently a ninth grade student at Crossroads Christian Academy with a love for the outdoors and participating in soccer and cross country running, Smith already had a special interest in wood working. His interest was due to a combination of his mother’s love for fine furniture and time spent with his now departed great grandfather who had been a craftsman and skilled woodworker. Even so, while familiar with some aspects of woodworking, Smith was “mostly green” when he came to South Georgia Casket Company.
Smith’s mother, Vanessa Markell Smith, founder of Jeremiah’s Promise, was looking for some hands on experiences for her son. Uncertain of what he wanted to do when done with school, he had expressed an interest in crafting things with wood and his mother ascribed to the philosophy “the best way to figure out what you want to do is to go out and do it.”
Luckily, Mrs. Smith recalled her friend and co-worker at Jeremiah’s Promise, Tracy, and her husband Jody Gill, had purchased a casket making company. Jayden was soon in the thick of things and what was initially meant to be a single day’s exposure to working in a wood shop soon became a summer-long apprenticeship. “He went one day and it became a whole summer thing,” says Smith’s mother.
Proprietor Jody Gill, a retired engineer exploring new things as South Georgia Casket Company’s owner since 2022 describes it as a “low key program, just one person at a time.” Gill says practical, real world skills such as can be learned in a wood shop are valuable—and often absent in today’s educational curriculum.
The South Georgia Casket crew are a small, efficient unit with typically only four people in the shop, including Gill. Smith mostly studied under South Georgia Casket’s resident builders Benjamin Crews, Eli Howard and Cason Dell, all of whom had positive things to say about the newest, albeit temporary member of their tight knit crew.
“He took to things real quick and seemed to enjoy the work,” said Crews. “It was a fun experience for all of us, having someone new on the team.”
Howard described Smith as “a real good worker” and Dell said the young man, “had a mind to work and he really wanted to do it. He was very motivated.”
Gill says Smith learned all the various stages of putting together the lovingly crafted caskets made from pine, cedar, oak, cherry and pecan. Due to safety concerns, Smith was not allowed to operate the saws in the shop, but got his hands into every other aspect of turning raw wood into finished caskets. From selecting and grading the lumber to sanding, finishing and packaging the final product, Smith learned how to do it all.
“We are proud of the hard work Jayden put forth at South Georgia Casket Company this summer and wish him the best in the 2025-2026 school year,” said Gill.
As for Jayden Smith and if woodworking will be his future vocation, his mother reports, “He enjoyed the experience and working with his hands, but he still wants to explore other things before finally settling on a career.”
What she is sure of is her son is already talking about incorporating his summer apprenticeship into his current hobbies.
