Homes by Avi and Jack James High School Team up and the Winner is ... Everyone. 7/20/2005
There's a house in Copperfield that will always have a special meaning for about 25 students from Jack James High School. The house was their first taste of professional construction work, and many will remember it as the place where their building career began. The home is the latest product of a partnership between Homes by Avi and the Jack James High School. Homes by Avi supplies designs and materials, and vocational students at the high school build a real house to the company's high standards.
This hands-on experience has helped many students choose a career path in the building trades, where skilled people are in demand.
The new home in Copperfield is the sixth built by the partnership. Like the ones before, it's bee moved to a lot in a new community. Students do as much as they can in a school term, then Homes by Avi completes the work, sells the home and returns half the proceeds to Jack James High School. The first five homes brought the school a total of $62,000, which has bought a lot of useful equipment.
For the students, these building projects provide serious experience in many facets of home construction, including framing, sheathing, roof trusses, shingles, drywall, windows and doors, and siding.
Each project is more than a classroom exercise - it's a real house that has to be built to market standards. Avi Amir, founder of Homes by Avi, says it's like an army exercise with live ammunition - "you have to be more accurate."
Amir believes the housing industry should help train the next generation of tradespeople. "We have a responsibility to encourage young people to follow and learn from our experiences, so when the time comes they are able to replace us," he says.
Homes by Avi also works with two junior high schools - Ernest Morrow and Bishop Kidd - that have vocational programs. They company donates $12,5000 a year to each school - a total of $175,000 so far - and contributes in other ways as well. The company also gives students guided tours through construction projects, where they can get on-site instruction and talk with experienced tradespeople.
At a recent ceremony in Copperfield, Amir got together with Jack James High School students who'd worked on the latest house. As usual, they'd built the house at school and it had been trucked to its final location.
This year's house was a two-story model, which is more popular in today's market. Students had built the first story only, so their visit to Copperfield was their first sight of their project complete with roof and second story.
They swarmed through the house, admiring their handiwork and checking out what the pros had done upstairs. Interestingly, several of this year's crop were young women seeking a career in the building trades.
In Alberta's hot economy, the construction industry is hard-pressed to find enough talent. The average tradesman is aged about 45, and the industry needs a steady supply of new people to replace retirees.
Meanwhile, the average age of people starting a trades apprenticeship is 26; many of them probably worked at dead-end jobs after high school before settling down to learn a skilled trade.
Graduates of the Jack James High School program heave a head start on a building career. They can go directly into the Registered Apprenticeship Program or apprenticeship training at SAIT - and they'll already have one house under their tool belt.
Article supplied by Home Source
www.newhomesource.ca
