A NEW HOME FOR A SURVIVOR
Chico High students build, dedicate tiny house for woman who lost home in North Complex
CHICO » One tiny home, one giant leap for a North Complex survivor.
On Wednesday, members of Valley Contractors Exchange, construction industry experts, students and community members came out to Chico High School to see the dedication of a tiny home, which was built by Chico High students and was donated to a very fortunate survivor of the North Complex fires, Margarita Saldivar.
“This is unbelievable, a dream come true,” Saldivar said, her eyes wide as she surveyed the tiny home from the inside. “I was wondering if I would ever go home.”
Saldivar has been living in a trailer appointed by Federal Emergency Management Agency for more than a year.
“Now I will be living in a beautiful home,” she said.
The students, who were part of Valley Contractor’s Exchange Mobile Instruction Training program, which travels to help students learn construction and is part of the Career Technical Education program through Chico Unified School District, worked on the home tirelessly for a semester, working before school, after school, on Saturdays and even during their prom. The home still needs cabinetry, plumbing and electrical work, but will be installed at the location in Forbestown in the next couple of weeks. The project was headed by the Rohrer family, including VCE Executive Director Amy Rohrer and her husband, general Rohrer Construction company employee and licensed general contractor Andrew Rohrer and their son, Ben Rohrer.
“I hope it’s easy to carry,” said Saldivar during the dedication, which was met with laughs. She was also given the keys to the house, although the locks aren’t yet installed.
“There is no one in the community who hasn’t been affected by wildfires,” said Chelsea Irvine, Community and Economic Development consultant who worked on the project. “I’m so proud to stand here with Amy and Ben. This incredible family took on this project. I hope it empowers everyone to help other disaster survivors.”
Ben Rohrer led the students and drew up the house plans and also attended a radio show to talk about the project with Irvine and Amy Rohrer. Jacob Toste, one of the students who worked on the project, had had no experience with construction, but enjoyed working on the project, doing mostly electrical work. Toste will be a senior at Chico High in the fall and plans to study mechatronics at Chico State.
“We worked together well,” he said of his team. “I’m surprised there wasn’t more messing around, with a group of high school kids. We were very focused.”
Scott Farquhar, an architecture teacher at Chico High who is in his second year of teaching, led the students during the project. They created their project on computers and then started off working on the physical project, beginning with a small shed to practice on before moving on to the tiny home. The home was also entered in a building competition in Sacramento.
“The students are phenomenal,” Farquhar said. “They bonded and created incredible memories.”
Farquhar said the Chico High staff were very supportive.
“The administration was amazing to work with,” he said.
Tiffany Herringer is the Career and Technical Education coordinator for the Chico Unified School District. She worked on all of the grant funding for the project.
“This is awesome,” Herringer said. “It was just frames a few weeks ago.”
Kaitlin Barrios, who just graduated from Chico High, was one of the few female members of the student team. She had not had any construction experience either but was approached by Ben Rohrer, who took robotics and math classes with her, to help with the project. She took science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses classes at Chico High.
“I had a little bit of fear going into the project,” Barrios said. “But the Rohrer family and Ben made it such an inclusive experience. This family made this all possible.”
The Rohrer family lost their home in the Camp Fire.
“Ben is such an inspiration and has a passion for helping the community,” Barrios said. “He and his family lost their home but thought nothing of doing this to help.”
Irvine was extremely pleased with the project.
“I was so honored to be a part of this,” she said. “The kids worked so hard and so did Andrew, Amy and Ben.”
Irvine also praised the industry experts who came in and taught the students about plumbing, electrical and other skills.
“This project wouldn’t have been possible without these industry experts who came in and put the students’ hands on tools,” she said.
Golden Valley Bank and the Ray Morgan Company were financial donors. A list of all project supporters can be found at vceonline.com.