Hands On Trade Education in the Huntington Community (Building Trades Class)

Raise your hand if you went through school only hearing, “College is the only way to be successful and earn a living!” Yeah, our hands are raised too! We understand the importance of college for some career paths, but those careers aren’t the only way to be successful or earn a living. Trade jobs are vital to our economy, community, and country's growth. Trade workers should not be looked down on or considered less than. Most of these workers earn far more than I do, sitting in my cushy office job, and their work requires immense training and talent.

Now, raise your hand if you’ve needed work on your home or property and struggled to find a skilled tradesperson. Yeah, once again, our hands are raised, too! We at Pathfinder have a community rehabilitation property we purchased to save and remodel, and our rehab team is a small team. Securing additional contractors has been less than easy. We believe wholeheartedly we need to foster the growth of the next generation of tradespeople so the struggles we currently face are not a prolonged problem.

Tiffanney Drummond, the Huntington County Community Learning Center team, and Huntington North High School share this same passion for trade development. Through what I think is an exciting partnership, students from HNHS/HCCLC are getting hands-on trade experience working on Pathfinder’s community rehab property on Condit Street in Huntington.

This partnership has opened the door to willing contractors to work with us to take these students through several steps to rehabilitate a house. The students get to work through demolition and rebuilding parts of the house. They also have the opportunity to observe or help on some HVAC, plumbing, drywall, and electrical projects.

Yes, we get some extra hands to help on our project, but these students gain real-world skills you can't get in just a classroom. In addition to the six high school credits they earn in their school's construction program, they can also earn nine dual college credits from Ivy Tech Community College for Intro to Construction and Intro to Carpentry 1 & 2. Additionally, they will earn OSHA 10 certification and can earn National Center for Construction Education & Research (NCCER) certifications.

Tiffanney Drummond, Director of Career & Technical Education and the Learning Center states, “Our goal for our students is that they gain real-world, hands-on experience in construction so they leave our program with an understanding of what they would like to do next in their career.”

This is a big deal! We are thrilled to be able to partner with the school system and get these students on a project! A project that also is helping restore a house in not-so-great condition, boosting neighborhood curb appeal and property values.

She goes on to share, “Our long-term vision for the program is to continue to collaborate with our community partners so that our students gain relevant experience and can also help our community. We would love to build a house from scratch one day!”

This partnership is such an exciting step forward in our community mission. Students expand their education with hands-on experience, a worn-down home in our community gets restored, and trade employers have fresh young minds to hire and continue teaching. That’s what I call a win, win, win situation. Shoutout to these exceptional students for their hard work and passion in learning trade skills.