Students from Fourth Avenue Junior High use trade skills to give back to HSOY
In David Cullison’s industrial arts class, students at Fourth Avenue Junior High School aren’t just picking up trade skills; they’re learning what it means to be a force for good in their local community.
Fusing community leadership with practical training and hands-on experience, last year’s students planned, designed and constructed a large dog house, painted red and topped with a shingle roof, to donate to the Humane Society of Yuma (HSOY) along with a “cat condo” built to provide shelter for feral cats in the area.
“They learned all the phases of construction with this project – how to frame a wall, how to build floor trusses, roofing – then they took all those components and built the shelter,” Cullison said.
The project was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures, but with Yuma School District One’s return to onsite learning in early March, the details were finalized and the completed shelters were transferred to their fur-ever home.
The dog house will be placed in HSOY’s front lobby as a “selfie station” for new pet owners to pose with their adopted animals, said HSOY Director of Development Kari Tatar, while the cat condo will house TNR (trap-neuter-return) cats in one of the 500-plus colonies throughout Yuma County.
According to Tatar, the cat condo will afford shelter from the elements while “cat colonists” assist in the animals’ caretaking.
The project, sponsored by the Yuma branch of the Arizona Business and Education Coalition (ABEC), is the first of more community-based projects in the works for the current and future school years, according to Cullison.
“It’s so important to have the kids involved in the community, and our school is at the center of the community,” Cullison said. “Our goal is to try to build two to three community projects a semester.”