FAIRFIELD – A club at the Fairfield High School is making 850 ornaments to give away this Christmas season.

The ornaments will be given to anyone who visits Santa in his house in Central Park, where he will be every Friday and Saturday from 6-8:30 p.m. starting this Friday, Nov. 24 and going through Dec. 22.

The club is called SkillsUSA, a brand new club at FHS that began last year with a handful of students. The club focuses on learning about the skilled trades, and at the state level, that can range from 3-D animation to welding.

The club’s advisor, Meshari Alnouri, also a career and technical education applied science teacher at FHS, said the group was too small last year to take on any projects, but this year is different. This year’s club has six members, all freshmen, and they were eager to get to work on a project. Alnouri said he has project ideas “out the wazoo,” but he wanted one where the students could get involved with the wider community.

Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mendy McAdams approached Alnouri to ask if the club would like to take on the task of making hundreds of ornaments to give away at Santa’s house. High school students have done similar things in the past, such as making reindeer, and McAdams hoped to reignite that tradition.

Emily Short, the club’s president, said it was fun to brainstorm ideas for the ornaments. The kids wrote 80 ideas on the white board, and narrowed that number further and further until they landed on three final designs: a Santa’s hat, a candle with a flame, and a candy with a wrapper coming out the top.

“We chose those because we felt they had the fewest parts and they would be the easiest to cut,” Short said.

Alnouri said the ornaments are being made out of hardboard, which the club found to be more durable and less expensive than plywood. Plus, hardboard was less likely to give splinters. The club is manufacturing all the ornaments, assembling them and painting them.

The club plans to have about half its ornaments finished by Thanksgiving so they are ready to give out immediately after the Holiday Lighting Ceremony at 6 p.m. Friday in Central Park. Alnouri said the other half should be finished a few weeks later. The chamber is covering the cost of the materials and the tools required to make the ornaments.

“I’m very proud of these kids,” Alnouri said. “They’re getting a taste of freedom to do something that is neither work for home or school.”

Alnouri said the state has required all schools to create a skills-related club. He described SkillsUSA as a “blue collar engineering club” that covers trades as diverse as welding, carpentry, drafting and just about any kind of problem-solving. The state hosts a SkillsUSA competition in the spring, and Fairfield is planning to participate.

Assisting the club is Vannen “Rusty” Crabtree, who teaches industrial arts at FHS and who entered education after spending most of his career as a contractor. Crabtree is now passing on his lifetime of knowledge to the next generation of craftsmen.