The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
STUDENTS AT NCI WORK WITH POLICE UPCOMING
Teens in auto body program paint van that will be used as SWAT vehicle
When Eastlake Police Chief Larry Reik and two detectives arrived at Willoughby-Eastlake School’s Northern Career Institute on Oct. 16, it wasn’t due to any trouble.
Reik and Detectives Kris Korun and Pat Krozcak along with Eastlake Mayor Dennis Morley were delivering pizza and doughnuts for the students in NCI’s auto body program to show their appreciation for the work the students did in painting a Students from Northern Career Institute are fabricating structures for the Eastlake Skate Park and getting them ready for installation in the spring. Pick up a copy of the Oct. 19 edition of The News-Herald to learn more about this project.
van to be used by SWAT.
The city has found it mutually beneficial to the city and the students to work on collaborative projects such as this.
The mayor, police chief, and
school administrator all agree that collaborations between Eastlake and NCI not only builds relationships between the students and the police but also provides financial benefits with the cost savings from the students doing the work.
According to the chief, this isn’t the first time the police department has utilized student help with a project like this. The auto body students did the paint job on the last van the police department had.
“It’s just a nice cooperative effort with the kids in that we get to see them on a basis like this and they get to see their work put to good use,” Reik said.
The chief also believes that being involved with the students on this level has made for better relationships between the department and youths.
“It’s just so much better of a relationship than what we had a decade ago,” Reik said.
Reik estimates that the cost of having the van painted elsewhere would probably be between $2,000 and $4,000.
“I think for the whole thing we just paid about $250 for the paint,” Reik said. “So all that savings stays with the city and that’s more money that the community has to use for other things.”
AJ Solomon, a senior in the
NCI auto body program, enjoys these kind of community projects as he recalled working to turn an ambulance into a SWAT vehicle and painting a trailer for Pulp Smoothies.
“It gets our name out there and it shows the community what we can do,” AJ said.
Tommy Geraci, also a senior in the program, thinks working with the police department on this type of community project helps connect the students with the first responders and the city while showing what they can do around town.
AJ recounted that the school received the white van in September with a request from the police department to paint it black.
“When we got it, the juniors worked on it sanding and priming it and then we painted it flat black.,” AJ said. “I personally helped sand it down and masked some of it off and we finished it up last week.”
Tommy believes this kind of project helps provide real world experience by showing him what he will end up doing when he is out of school and working.
Deanna Elsing, the administrator for NCI, addressed the students when they turned the van over to the police department, telling them “We do this for our community.”
Elsing also told them the van was not just for the city but would be for all of western Lake County.
Lou Masitto, the auto body instructor at NCI, was quite pleased with the way it turned out.
Masitto likes getting the police department into the school to work with the students on projects like the van.
“I like for the students to be associated with the police department on a much different level,” Masitto said. “When I can get the police department into the body shop to talk to the students and they relate to each other, then the students look at the police totally differently and I think the police look at a lot of the kids totally differently.”
Korun, who is one of the SWAT members who will use the van, said he loved working with the students.
“I think it’s a great collaborative between the students, the city and the school district,” Korun said. “These kids did a great job and the van looks amazing... It look fantastic, its tactical, its really cool for the SWAT team. These guys did a great job on it and we appreciate what they did for us.”
Reik invited the students to come by and see the van once the department has it outfitted with all the SWAT equipment.
According to Elsing, the police will be bringing the van back after the holidays so the welding students who are currently working on fabricating the new skate park for Eastlake can weld a bench and shelves into the back of the van.