'Everybody wins': Edison Tech class learns job skills while building community projects

A group of high school students huddled around Scott Moore as he laid a strip of shingles atop a wooden box.

It was time to learn about roofing.

Moore secured the bottom layer of shingles, taking a hammer to six nails straight across, then showed the teenagers how to line up the next piece and handed over his tools on this chilly February morning.

On the surface, this looks like a standard high school carpentry class. For Moore, the true goal goes deeper. He isn't trying to train carpenters. Instead, the projects they build here are tools themselves as Moore works with a group of students with intellectual or physical disabilities, trying to ready them for a thriving, independent life once they finish school.

And this day's project has a dual purpose itself: The mini shelters they're building won't house people ― rather food. The class at Edison Tech High School agreed to build eight food cupboards this spring to be placed across the city, where people can donate and take free food as they need.

Students at Edison Tech focus on projects that meet community needs

Community partnerships are a core element of the Carpentry and Building & Grounds program, Moore said.

A few years ago, the program started building projects for different organizations as long as they pay for the materials needed. It's a mutually beneficial situation: Community groups get their projects built at a cheaper rate. Moore's students get real-life experience. And he can spend his school budget on better tools instead of materials that might spoil if not used up in time.

It started when Moore's class built 10 picnic tables for another school during the COVID-19 pandemic, when funding was short everywhere.

"A lightbulb went off," Moore said. "The end product goes back into the community ... and the students can have this sense of pride. Everybody wins."

Since then, his class has built mobile skateboard ramps used at city recreation centers to teach young people the sport. The Corn Hill Neighborhoods Association commissioned 10 custom-painted Adirondack chairs last year. And in 2022, the students transformed a vacant, "1970's pea-soup green" cafeteria space at the school into a modern senior lounge.

The latest project was sponsored by Devon Reynolds, a Rochester barber and community advocate who runs Sweet Ida Mae's Food Pantry. He was giving free haircuts at the school last December and told a school counselor about his plans to set up a network of food cupboards across the city.

A similar effort thrived during the pandemic, but donations dried up last year. Reynolds has a plan to keep the cupboards stocked through partnerships of his own with local businesses and non-profits.

The students were more than eager to help.

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Edison Tech program teaches students with disabilities independence, special skills

During class, Moore does quick demonstrations and then splits his students into groups and lets them coach one another.

"I think you've really improved," 21-year-old Louvan Norman, one of the oldest students, tells 16-year-old Jacquez Shaw, who joined the program last year.

The students here range from ages 15 to 21 and are part of the New York State Alternate Assessment program, which offers a modified curriculum that ends with a skills-based certificate.

Moore is focused on getting these students ready for employment in the real world. He assesses their working style and how well they can follow a set of instructions and retain the information they learned. As they continue in the program, the students begin to visit other community partners, like Seneca Park Zoo and Homesteads for Hope, for on-the-job skills training.

"It's exposing our students to prospective employers and also changing the attitudes around how employers view our students," said Chris McCoy, another teacher with the program.

One of those visits, to a nursing home, turned into a part-time job for Norman. He attends Edison Tech once a week while working, but will complete the program this year.

"It's a training ground for when you get out," he said about his classes. "If it were up to me, I'd spend all my time in this room."

Officially, Moore said the goal is to get their students to the greatest level of independence possible. But really, he just hopes they leave with a sense of pride in what they can accomplish when given the opportunity to flourish.

"Seeing that they can achieve goals, that they finished projects that helped the community, that they're becoming employed," Moore said. "I don't know if teenagers can value those components while they're teens, but hopefully they'll value it down the road."

— Kayla Canne reports on community justice and safety efforts for the Democrat and Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @kaylacanne and @bykaylacanne on Instagram. Get in touch at kcanne@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Edison Tech students build free food cupboards for city residents