From the outside looking in, it appears like students at Putnam Career and Technical Career are creating a normal project. However, for the last five weeks students in multiple programs at the school created a tiny home for West Virginia flood survivors.
The home was picked up by West Virginia National Guard members Monday. Tuesday it will be displayed at Yeager Airport, along with homes made by 12 other schools throughout the state.
For Kevin Childers, a carpentry teacher at the school, the deadline seemed almost impossible.
"We heard a timeline, five to six weeks that was very fast but we still agreed to do that," he said. "Time is up and it's ready to be delivered."
The tiny home, which is about 30 feet long and 8 feet wide, can sleep up to six people. The home has a kitchen with a full-sized fridge, dishwasher, microwave and a full-size range. In the bathroom, there's a full-size tub and shower and a stacked washer and dryer.
The plumbing, carpentry, HVAC, welding and graphic design classes did the brunt of the work, Childers said, but classes that weren't directly related to the project also were involved. Community members donated food, furniture and supplies to the CTE. The students even took after-school and weekend shifts to ensure that the project would be completed on time.
"There were days where everybody was trying to climb on top of each other, but there were other days that the instructors would work every morning and try to work to stay out of each other's way," Childers said.
While group projects are routine at the CTE, this large-scale group project was different than anything they had worked on before.
"Normally we have more projects with less people in a group. The biggest adjustment for this project was the amount of people working on one goal or outcome," Childers said.
For students, the opportunity not only provided hands-on experience, but also allowed them to learn how to give back.
"We're helping people we don't know today and it could be us tomorrow," Childers said. "You don't know what the circumstances are."
For Austin Starcher, a 17-year-old senior at the school, he said the project gave him a chance to use the skills he's learned to help others.
"Clendenin was devastated by the floods and I'm glad we could do something to help them and get a family out of the cold."
Starcher believes the work that the school did pushed all of the students to find ways to give back.
"If I was out in the cold in the winter I would want someone to do something for me, so I'm glad we could do something for them."
He said the project also will allow him to know who receives the work he and his classmates created. In his carpentry class, students were initially creating large utility sheds for community members to purchase.
"We never really know where it goes after. We finish it here, and somebody comes and buys it," Starcher said."Now we know where it's going, and we actually get to go to the airport to see it go to the family and that's just inspiring."