Photos used with permission.
All instructors have faced incredible challenges with distance learning over the last year, but for those career and technical education instructors teaching hands-on skills like woodworking, the challenges are amped up a notch or two. Maybe even three.
The Society of Wood Manufacturing (SWM), a Southern California industry-education group, decided to help woodworking instructors meet those challenges by hosting a donation program that collected over $60,000 in material and supplies for 25 school programs in the area so that teachers could make distance learning woodworking kits for their students.
“SWM wanted to do something that would impact as many woodworking students as possible,” said Saúl Martín, SWM’s president. “Teachers really needed some help from industry to boost their woodworking programs.”
SWM is also a chapter of the Association of Woodworking & Finishing Suppliers (AWFS), and part of their strategy was to request donations of materials and supplies from other AWFS member companies. Eleven companies and associations responded to the call quickly and generously, including SkillsUSA California.
Along with the materials, SWM awarded nineteen $500 grants to local California woodworking teachers to use for even more distance learning supplies. SWM received so much donated material and funds that they decided to allow any woodworking instructor in Southern California to take as much wood as they wanted for their program.
In total, the efforts of SWM and AWFS member companies are expected to impact over 1,000 woodworking students, another example of that “partnership of students, teachers and industry” that defines SkillsUSA.
To see more photos of the donation process, click here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/VULrkDAuL1tGngFA7.
