Career center class builds justice center shelter

Coshocton County Sheriff Chris Walters contacted Coshocton County Career Center instructor Brad Sarchet in the fall about the construction technology class building a small picnic shelter for the Coshocton County Justice Center. The class was busy at that time and couldn't work in bad weather. In the spring his budget had been cut, but through his affiliation with Ohio Contractors Association, Sarchet was able to begin the project through a fund for schools and community service projects and they received a $2,000 grant.

"We are moving right along,” Sarchet said. “But we couldn't do it without Donnie Jacobs from Coshocton Lumber, who sold us materials at cost. Hathaway donated jack hammers and came to spend time with the students and dig the holes. Coshocton Materials is on my advisory board, and they are donating concrete. Everything is coming together to make this happen, and it's a good project because the pavilion can be used for school groups who come in for things like demonstrations with the dogs.”

This is a project students can take pride in and know they made an impact in the community.

“I've been using the juniors in the morning and seniors in the afternoon,” Sarchet said. “The class is construction technology, and these students will be going into some field of construction, plumbing, wiring, carpentry, heavy equipment, block laying. We cover a lot of things in our program.

"We are finishing a project where we made a dugout at River View for the boys and girls field. Last year we made dugouts and put all new steel siding on the ones for Coshocton. It's not that we only work for the schools; we try to do work for community service. It's hard to go out and do a job because we have to be close to the school and we have a limited amount of time. There is nothing that can replace hands-on job site experience. You can't replicate that back in the shop."

Mason Hershberger is a junior at the career center. He will do a work program next year.

"I will be able to finish all my classes over the summer and go to work full-time as of next fall,” he said. “I have to find a field that relates to the career I am pursuing at the career center. I am going to be working in plumbing next fall and over the summer. We do a lot of things in the construction class. We started by learning about safety and all the different tools. Then we got into larger projects.

"We built a small enclosure on the inside and practiced roofing, floor joists and all of that. We did roofing with shingles and learned about different types of shingles, building up to do larger projects.”