Solid base for kids’ creativity
A group of woodworkers have used their spare time to build 14 children’s tables for the needs of Barnardos Early Learning Homebased in Southland.
Barnardos visiting teacher Helen Hart, of Invercargill, travels around 14 home-based educators to support them and check they have the right resources, systems and procedures in place for children in their care.
Home-based educators each care for up to four children in the 0 to 5 age group.
Government funding late last year enabled Hart to buy the tables off the Southland Wood Workers’ Guild in
Invercargill. She came across the guild while surfing the internet.
‘‘I didn’t know they existed . . . I was looking around to see who made wooden tables [for children],’’ Hart said.
The tables are ideal for requirements, especially for woodwork activities. Tools used by the children were supplied by Mitre 10 Winton.
Hart intends to bring the homebased educators and children to the guild’s workshop in Turnbull Thomson Park to show them where the tables were built.
‘‘Hopefully, they’ll go back to their woodwork tables and be creative,’’ she said.
Hart said working with timber helped young children to understand length, size, hand and eye co-ordination, and creativity in a three-dimensional way.
The guild has been operating for more than 30 years and in 2017 it bought an old darts hall near Rugby Park. Workshop foreman Ivan Carran said that of the 65 members most were senior men and women, with 25 per cent being qualified tradesmen.
‘‘We’re mostly volunteers with an interest in wood. We like to come along and play with wood.’’
The guild’s cashflow comes from sales, donations, and grants from the Invercargill Licensing Trust and ILT Foundation. A lot of the equipment and tools have been donated, gifted from estates or bought at reduced prices.