SkillsUSA Students Provide Valuable Community Service

5/22/2009 4:59:00 PM

The Smokey Timbers Camp is looking a lot better these days, thanks to a hard-working crew of students from the Alexandria Technical College (ATC).

About 90 students descended upon the primitive camp on the north shore of Lake Miltona a couple weeks ago.

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 6, they repaired an old deck, cleared trails, tuned up lawn mowers, remodeled a bunkhouse, caulked doors and windows, moved around tables outside, split firewood, put in docks, readied the beach and completed other miscellaneous repair jobs.

They also ate "about a million hot dogs" – their only compensation for a busy half-day of work, said Dick Kuehn, a member of the board of directors of the Smokey Timbers Foundation.

"It was amazing, everything they did," he said. "They accomplished more in four hours than we would have been able to do independently over two years."

“We really did appreciate the number of students that were able to help and all the work that was accomplished,” said Caroline Schultz, another board member with the foundation, in an e-mail to the newspaper.

The students came from several ATC programs – carpentry, marine and small engine, machining, mechanical drafting, welding and mechatronics. They adopted the Smokey Timbers fix-up as their community service project through the SkillsUSA, a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled work force.

Owned by WesMin Resource, Conservation and Development, Smokey Timbers Camp once belonged to the Girl Scouts. A few years ago, it was in danger of being sold to a private developer until WesMin led a communitywide effort to raise the money to buy the property and save the camp.

The 21.3-acre camp is now a place for youth and families to learn about nature and explore the outdoors.

The goodwill toward Smokey Timbers didn’t end with the carpentry students.

On May 15, Boy Scout Troop 472 from Parkers Prairie, including scout leader Rick Ackerman, and Troop 454 from Brooklyn Center, led by Brent Ackerman, worked with Smokey Timbers Camp/Foundation board members on "Join Hands Day."

The project was organized in conjunction with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Kristi Froemming from the Douglas County chapter.

Join Hands Day is a nationwide effort to bring youth and adults together to improve their communities and build meaningful relationships across generations.

Smokey Timbers received $250 from Thrivent Financial for sports equipment that will be used by campers.

The equipment included a volleyball net and ball, badminton net and rackets, two bats and ball, and other outdoor games.

The Boy Scouts helped with pouring cement into tires to be used for uprights to hold the volleyball net.

Alexandria Technical College expresses appreciation to The Echo Press for granting permission to reprint this article.

Author: Al Edenloff

Source:The Echo Press