Tuscaloosa County students recycle T-shirts into jump ropes for elementary kids

Mya Austin hopes to soon be manufacturing Mercedes-Benz vehicles, but right now she is manufacturing jump ropes and producing smiles.

The Tuscaloosa High senior is a student in the Modern Manufacturing program at the Northport Career Tech Annex. She is part of a class led by teacher Laura Peffer. Their most recent project converted T-shirts into jump ropes, which they took to the students at Crestmont Elementary School in Northport.

More: Agriculture students can get hands-on experience at 70-acre farm in Tuscaloosa County

"I am going into a manufacturing career. I'm actually working with Mercedes right now. I got the Mercedes internship and I'm doing that now. This class really prepares me for a plant job and get in the hang of how a plant job will be," Austin said.

Peffer, who teaches about 100 students over the course of the two academic semesters, said she is always looking for ways to apply with her lessons.

"I wanted to try to tie something in to our curriculum. I saw a video on social media of how you can make jump ropes out of T-shirts. I said to myself that we could set up an assembly line and make jump ropes. I can have quality checkers check the ropes and sort them by size. I reached out to Crestmont to see if they would be interested in this and they jumped at it since they do a Jump Rope for the Heart marathon every year," Peffer said.

The Crestmont students were delighted with their jump ropes which the high schoolers had created from about 900 T-shirts. The students collected the shirts from other students and teachers at Tuscaloosa County High after returning from spring break. They set up an assembly line to convert the shirts into strips and formed the strips into braided jump ropes. The delight on the faces of those receiving the gifts made the high school students' day. The project took about two weeks from beginning to end.

Myah Miller, a County High junior said, "I want to do more projects like this. I enjoy seeing all these kids' smiles and I want to do more community service."

Miller took the class as an alternative to her traditional classes and said she has enjoyed it. The class has opened her eyes to new avenues for her future.

"I just wanted to try something different. My friends also wanted me to join the class. Once I was in, I was like, this is something I want to do a lot. I'm glad I took the class," Miller said.

That impact is what Peffer is looking for in the career tech education programs.

"I think career tech provides a different opportunity because it is hands on learning, its service learning and its real life learning. Academic book work is also important but this touches different types of people and this is catering to students who are extremely intelligent but don't want to be stuck in a classroom all the time. Maybe their goal is to work in a trade or do something hands on," Peffer said.

Peffer added that the career tech program does other things for students like teaching them how to handle job interviews, write resumes and develop the skills necessary to compete for jobs in the modern world of manufacturing.

Reach Gary Cosby Jr. at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Tuscaloosa County recycling project produces jump ropes for Crestmont