This school year, 60 local high school students are learning construction skills while giving back to the community at the same time.
Eric Fisher, Hamilton Heights Construction and Engineering Department Trades Teacher, thought it would be a great project to have his Construction Trades I class combine learning with serving the community. He reached out to Mark Hall, Co-founder of FeedingTeam.org, and together they put a plan in place.
Mr. Fisher (a.k.a. Fish) began by saying, “My wife and I were headed out to dinner when we saw one of these yellow food box pantries. I reached out to the Halls and here we are. If we’d have turned the other direction for dinner this project wouldn’t have happened.”
Fisher joked “we can only build so many deer blinds” while explaining his idea to build Feeding Team pantries as one of this year’s projects to his students. “Let’s build something this semester that helps save lives in our community, not take life.”
Loading the new food pantries onto the Gaylor Electric truck. (Photo provided)
After conversations, detailed plans for the pantries were in Mr. Fisher’s hands. Next, using proceeds from last year’s Feeding Team Festival at Federal Hill Commons, $7,000 worth of new construction materials were available to the students to build the pantries.
“In today’s economic climate it’s rare for students to have real lumber and materials to build with,” Fishers said. “It is a special learning opportunity for my students.”
“Today is a special day as the team from Gaylor Electric picked up the first six pantries completed by Hamilton Heights High School students,” Hall said.
Gaylor transports the pantries to their shop and completes the process of painting and preparation. Then once they are finalized, Gaylor and volunteers deploy the pantries to their host locations. According to Fisher, five more will be ready for deployment right after spring break. With these 11, that will bring the number of FeedingTeam.org pantries in service to 51.
These students join with the more than 70 volunteers serving Hamilton County every week providing thousands of no-questions-asked meals to hungry neighbors in Cicero, Arcadia, Noblesville, Fishers, Carmel, and Sheridan.
The Feeding Team (feedingteam.org) provides no-questions-asked, outdoor, 24/7/365, free, non-perishable food pantries with a focus on Hamilton County.