AU alumna Audrey Murell fosters community engagement at Augusta Training Shop

Just a few blocks away from Augusta University’s Health Sciences Campus lies the Augusta Training Shop, a hidden gem of community good that has a strong AU connection.

Audrey Murell, who graduated from AU legacy institution Augusta State University in 1997, has served as the shop’s executive director since 2001. She joined the shop as an intern in 1996 prior to completing her bachelor’s of art and has watched the shop grow in both its operations and public perception.

The Augusta Training Shop is a local non-profit that employs adults with disabilities who learn a multitude of different skills, such as weaving for some of the shop’s signature items, furniture repair and upholstery, and metal polishing among many others. The shop began in 1947 as a haven for intellectually disabled adults who no longer had the education system to rely on.

Parents wanted more for their children than to be placed in institutions, and for 79 years now the Augusta Training Shop has, according to its website, offered “acceptance free of discrimination” where employees can “improve their economic well-being, gain personal dignity, exercise artistic expression, and discover new talents.”

Under Murell’s leadership, the shop’s offerings have multiplied – as has the skillset and creativity of her employees.

“We’ve expanded it where we showcase their talents and their skills and value that they’re going to get paid for, and we also try to give them a bigger platform to showcase to the world what they can do,” Murell said.

“I’m proud of their creativity and seeing how our employees go from thinking what they can’t do, to being pushed outside of their box and seeing them excited about what they can do and reaching their goals,” Murell continued. “I’m just proud of their handiwork and want to praise them and let them know how meaningful their work and their abilities are.”

However, perhaps no item has been more important to the success of the shop than its custom-made snowflakes.

Inspired by Scandinavian traditions, each snowflake is individually handcrafted by employees at the Augusta Training Shop, who have “woven a part of themselves into the fibers of each piece,” as written on listings on the shop’s website. According to Murell, there are roughly 300 different designs and are all individually named for their creators.

The snowflakes have been featured in numerous publications and programs, but Murell says their first big break came from ABC News Worldwide with David Muir during the holiday season in 2022. The result from that publicity was staggering.

“In four hours, we got a year’s worth of orders. And we broke the internet,” Murell said. “We’re still trying to get a good website back up and running for that.”

The snowflakes, and by extension, the shop, have become staples of home décor magazines such as Southern Lady and Traditional Home, while last holiday season Murell was invited to appear on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

In 2019, Walt Disney World asked the training shop to provide snowflakes to help decorate its Animal Kingdom theme park for the holiday season, dotting the buildings and walkways of the park leading up to its iconic Tree of Life. The entire training shop crew was invited for a private showing of the park to witness the snowflakes in action.

“Disney closed the whole Animal Kingdom down and showed us the installation of the art, and that was amazing,” Murell said. “Some people have never had a trip out of town before, so that was really fun.”

The employees at the Augusta Training Shop have also stepped up to help communities in need. When Hurricane Helene devastated wide swaths of the southeast – including the Central Savannah River Area – Murell and the shop invited the community to come in and make custom hearts for recovery workers.

“We opened up the doors and we had over a hundred people from Augusta come in,” Murell said. “Kids, adults – age didn’t matter, we had this place packed out. We made almost 2,000 hearts, and we handed out every single heart to one of the workers.”

Those hearts and the shop’s commitment to community engagement led to a recent event by Augusta University’s Community Engagement Leadership Council (CELC) at the training shop, where attendees learned about the mission of the shop, made their own hearts and also witnessed a surprise donation from one of Murell’s interns to another community organization.

AU senior Raiyna Bearden, co-creator of the INNOVATE 2026 winning Haloria soap, was Murell’s intern at the shop this past summer and credits her with valuable experience in her own endeavors on expanding Haloria’s reach.

“It was an amazing opportunity,” Bearden said. “I met some amazing people. All the workers here, they were intrigued in the soap, they wanted to learn about it too.

“Audrey taught me a lot through the process,” Bearden continued. “I got to see the behind the scenes of nonprofits, I saw the hard work and dedication that goes into them. I learned about grants. I learned about the social media side of things because social media is not the easiest thing in the world to run. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve learned that you’ve really got to love what you do.”

Along with her professor and mentor for the project, Roger Duke, MS, of Augusta University’s James M. Hull College of Business, the pair surprised Project Refresh vice president Tracy Showman – who was in attendance for the event at the shop – with a donation of 300 travel-size bars of Haloria.

Duke, who was on the committee that first hired Murell at the shop, had high praise for the work she has done over the years.

“As you can see, what she’s done over the last 20-something years has been absolutely amazing,” Duke said.

For Murell, these kinds of events help remind the AU community – and the Augusta community at large – of the impactful work taking place at the shop. And she is eager for more collaboration in the future.

“We love having people here,” Murell said. “We want people to know our doors are always open. We love to set this place up and offer people to come and have meetings here with staff, faculty, the general public. We’re an open book and we want people here and working alongside our wonderful people and getting that friendship with them and letting people know, hey, I could be a friend, a mentor, or I really like being around these people and not being afraid of being around somebody that’s different.

“I learned all kinds of wonderful things through AU, with my education, through my internship, with my professors,” Murell continued. “They were really accessible to me, very helpful. Back then it was a very small liberal fine arts college. It’s grown a lot, and I’d love to be a part of that growth and collaboration in any way I can with alumni, with teachers, with staff, with departments, just to help promote the work of the shop and our special artists.”