HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Instead of the great outdoors, maybe this summer, there’s something great for young people inside a local warehouse.
“You need your tape measure and your pencil,” says Troy Vandine, the workforce development trainer for The Rosendin Foundation.
This week, sixth through eighth graders are wearing hard hats and safety glasses to do something constructive at TRF Camp Build, held by the Rosendin nonprofit.
Vandine is teaching a group of 20 campers about the art of conduit bending, an essential skill for electricians.
“You actually need to bend it a little bit past 90 degrees because it will spring back,” he advised them.
Those skills might be a conduit to career opportunities in a field with a massive shortage of hundreds of thousands of workers nationwide.
“Guidance counselors are really pushing for ninth-graders, freshmen, to know what they want to be when they graduate high school. I remember that age, I had no idea,” he said.
“I get real-life experiences so that when I grow up, I don’t have to always call somebody to help fix stuff around my house,” says camper Diana Djueha, who’s building confidence by trying new things.
The camp also shows parents that there’s a future for their child in construction.
“There are paths out there that make a very good living that don’t require that you going to college,” Vandine said.
Camp Build also gives them lessons in concrete and rebar work, soldering, roofing and painting. They also build doghouses to be distributed to animal-related nonprofits in the area.
There is a waiting list of 140 people for the camp.
At the end of the week, participants get to take home a set of tools to get them started.
In one session, the campers used VR technology to build automobiles. Virtual reality gave Kadan Locatis a chance to think about the real world.
“This is my third time building the race car, I just like doing it for fun man,” he said with his goggles on.
“I’m going into high school and it’s like getting the experience, because I need to get a job soon and all that,” Locatis said.
“Every day it’s a bunch of action,” said Jake Donahue, who was in the middle of lamp-building class. It’s another hands-on project that’s foreign to some of these kids.
“I’ve enjoyed it a lot because it’s stuff that I wouldn’t be doing if I wasn’t here. Like before this camp, I never worked with power tools or built much,” Donahue said.
Camp Build helps them find out if they’re wired for this kind of work.
“You see the kids develop a sense of confidence,” Vandine said.
That might provide a lightbulb moment that shapes their future.
Source: Fox 8 News Channel
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