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Fairfield chamber donates tools to FHS SkillsUSA Club
FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce donated a set of tools to Fairfield High School’s SkillsUSA Club as a sign of its appreciation for the club making over 800 Christmas ornaments for the chamber’s Santa House.
Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mendy McAdams and Chamber Board President Denise Hall presented the tools to the members of the SkillsUSA Club on Friday, Jan. 26, and also brought pizzas for the students to show the chamber’s gratitude for the ornaments.
The SkillsUSA Club is a new club at FHS that formed last school year and did its first project this year. The club focuses on teaching students about skilled trades such as carpentry, welding and drafting. In the fall, McAdams approached the club’s advisor Meshari Alnouri, a career and technical education applied science teacher at FHS, to see if the club could make the chamber’s ornaments that it gives away to families who visit Santa in Central Park. Alnouri and the club’s six members, all freshmen, were eager to get to work on the project.
The club’s six members are Alex Hudson, Draven Shelton, Emily Short, Bobby Short, Wade Roberts and Blake Ballew.
The club made three ornaments out of hardboard: a Santa’s hat, a candle with a flame, and a candy with a wrapper coming out the top. The club members manufactured the ornaments, assembled them and painted them.
McAdams said the partnership with the SkillsUSA Club went so well this past Christmas that they already have a verbal agreement to do the ornaments again next year, and now they’ll have even more tools to work with.
The four tools the chamber donated were a benchtop bandsaw, a benchtop drill press, a palm router and a set of bits for it. Alnouri said these tools will allow the club to make even more detailed ornaments next year.
“This is a very kind donation, and shows that [the chamber] is very understanding of the needs of the group,” Alnouri said. “I look forward to working with them for the next set of ornaments.”
Alnouri said the ornament project was a great way to get the club members experience with the manufacturing process.
“I’m sure they enjoyed themselves, and although we had plenty of failures, it was an amazing learning opportunity for a group of freshmen.”
McAdams said this collaboration between the chamber and high school students is reminiscent of an earlier collaboration between the two groups.
“The Santa Claus and reindeer carousel in the gazebo [in Central Park] were made by the shop class here in the late 1950s and early 1960s,” McAdams said. “The other part is that it’s important for us as the chamber to help these kiddos out. These are our future employees, our future manufacturers. Giving them a project they were completely in charge of gives them something they can put on their resume so they can build their skills.”
McAdams said local manufacturers were impressed by the students’ craftsmanship and that they performed every step in the manufacturing process from getting the basic hardboard to a finished ornament.
Vannen “Rusty” Crabtree teaches industrial tech at FHS and assists Alnouri with the SkillsUSA Club. This is Crabtree’s first year at FHS, after having spent 28 years working as a contractor.
“It’s been a blast,” Crabtree said. “You couldn’t ask for a better group of students to work with, and you couldn’t ask for a better teacher to work with. It’s been fun watching them learn and grow as they do this.”
Crabtree said that when a student asks him a question, he guides them toward the answer instead of telling them the answer. He said that’s a better way to get them to problem solve.
“That’s one of the biggest issues I’ve found in the construction field, and the manufacturers talk about it, which is that they need people who can problem solve, who can work on their own,” he said. “I’m teaching them how to think on their feet.”
Alnouri said the club tries to meet at least once every two weeks. The club hasn’t decided yet what it’s next project will be, but he said it’s looking into a fundraising project, and a local civic organization has also approached the club with a project idea.
