Picnic benches built by Hilltop students will soon be at both Huestis Demonstration Forest and the Forest Interpretive Centre

 

A group of six Hilltop High students were given the opportunity to take part in a neat options course this semester. As part of the ongoing Merits Marvelous Makeover, students have been building things for their community. Thanks to a generous two-year sponsorship from the Merit Contracting Association in partnership with Northern Gateway Public Schools, the shop class at Hilltop has been very busy.

The project started out as support for Repeat Boutique with students building different organizational items for the newly renovated store. Students from different grades spent a lot of time last year building shelving, boxes for under coat racks, and book shelves.

Contractor Mr. J. Reid, who is also a retired shop teacher, was brought in last year to start the project with the children. “Altogether, 25 bins were built for the store last year and this year students have built six more bins and are also welding together more coat racks. We’re also welding together a bike rack and we’ve built two more bookcases.”

This year the school was able to use some of the left-over sponsorship money to build the picnic benches. Students had several options for which classes they wanted to take, and grade nine student Reese Ramstead said he is happy he chose the shop class. “I’m pretty happy that we got to pick this and that this is going towards our community. Hopefully they treat it well because we’ve put a lot of time and effort into making these benches.”

Grade nine student Brodie Gaffney agreed. “I really like construction and I preferred this option over the other options I had.” Both boys enjoyed getting to learn the ins and outs of building the benches and, along with four other students, Abby Dixon, Ethan Schar, Maximilian Ostrander and Cody Cunningham, they built over a dozen.

“The tables the students built are made from one by sixes, one by eights, and two by fours, all treated. The students screwed the picnic tables together using treated screws and all the joints are glued with PL Premium so they should last for years,” explained Reid. Each table is adorned with a plaque that states the names of the students who took part in the project and will forever let those who utilize the tables know exactly how they got to be where they are.

Twelve of the benches will be located at the Huestis Demonstration Forest, two will be at the Forest Interpretive Centre, and two will be at the School Board office. “It was definitely a different kind of experience. I’ve never build picnic tables before. I learned a lot of stuff along the way and I think knowing this will be pretty helpful in life if I need to build something or just even repair something around the house,” said Ramstead.

Students teamed up as pairs to work on tables and both Ramstead and Gaffney feel confident in what they have learned. When asked if they thought they would be able to build a picnic bench, if given the supplies, both said they felt they could. “The whole thing was really neat to learn,” said Gaffney.