SCTCC Carpentry students are putting their new skills to a good cause. The class just finished framing walls for the Lincoln Center homeless shelter in the lab; the walls will be loaded on a truck next week and delivered to the site.
The Lincoln Center is supported by Homeless Helping Homeless, an association of homeless and formerly homeless folks and friends in the St. Cloud area. They help each other and area homeless find resources for food, clothing, transportation, housing, and employment.
Instructor Pat Dehler took a few students out to the site to snap the lines and get measurements for the supplies list, then the Carpentry student built the walls in the lab.
Student Allie Roberts was the project manager for the build, making sure the lengths were cut correctly, organized, and in the right location.
Fellow student Eric Becker then did the layout. “It was a good experience. Got me to learn how to layout doors a lot faster.”
Dehler was impressed by how quickly the students got the project completed. The walls were finished in three to four days, much faster than his expected three-four weeks.
This project was an addition to the others they are working on this year, including the Habitat for Humanity projects at Tech High School and in Cold Spring.
Now that the walls are finished, they’ll be taken to the site where volunteers will install them.
“It’s a good project. It gives us experience and builds up our hand eye coordination. It’s cool to do a community project to help out the homeless by giving them spaces to live in,” said student TJ Czech.