Vo-tech helps the community
How does a technical school serving students in grades 10, 11 and 12 from across Butler County create a climate that nurtures volunteerism, community service and the spirit of giving?
The answer lies within the positive approach of serving others through practical learning experiences introduced by both the faculty at Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School and by the students themselves.
Providing supplies for the Petroleum Valley Food Cupboard and for the Butler branch of the Salvation Army Food Cupboard is a project that SkillsUSA, the all-school club at BCAVTS, did as a first semester project. The project, supported by students in the collision repair, culinary arts, graphic arts, health assistant/health occupations and commercial art classes, collected 11,358 food items.
The Rev. James Higgins, coordinator of the Petroleum Valley Food Cupboard, said about this project, "Last month, we gave food to 96 families, a total of 271 people. The food that you have given to the food cupboard in your food drive will help us give even more food to those families in the months to come."
The community service projects done by the students can be schoolwide initiatives or extensions of classroom theories. BCAVTS students participate in extra-curricular and cocurricular activities that complement, but do not copy, the activities offered at a student's home school.
This added variety gives students another outlet to experience character-building interactions with the community and exposes students to the complexity of the Butler County community.
The experiences in the community are as varied as the classes offered at BCAVTS. For example, the students in the new commercial art class created and painted winter themed windows at the Power-Up Equipment Co. In the fall of 2006, the air conditioning/heating/electrical students rewired the holiday lights for Main Street in Butler. The protective service students continually donate their time with EMS service providers and with volunteer fire departments.
These classes have been having exceptional experiences in the community while helping others:
Students in the graphic arts class are encouraged to develop artistic talents by learning to use specific industry-related tools and machinery by working on community projects.The students have designed, printed and applied vinyl graphics to the Butler police cars; designed and produced a customized license plate for state Sen Jane Orie, R-40th, and completed 150 customized license plates for senior citizens during the senator's senior expo; designed and printed the BCAVTS holiday greeting card; designed and produced vinyl magnets and lapel pins in support of the Karns City S.A.D.D. program in conjunction with a senior project; designed and etched the individual name and number of each player into glassware for the Butler High School Football Team's recognition banquet; decked the halls at Sunnyview Home for the holiday season; and collected donations for the SkillsUSA food drive.
Students in the culinary arts class are equally active in the community as they collected more than 4,000 items for the food drive. Eleven students participated in the senior expo sponsored by Orie as they volunteered by serving meals to the senior citizens attending it.The Butler School District Caring Angels and the Butler Golden Tornado Scholastic Foundation hosted the Late Night Catechism show that included a reception catered by the BCAVTS Culinary Arts classes. Eleven students donated their time to serve about 150 people at the reception.Three students competed in the gingerbread house competition at the PPG Place Wintergarten. The Children's Hospital Free Care Fund receives the monetary contributions from the display and sale of the gingerbread houses.
Finding quality health care, the future of health care and personal health care issues are three current topics in the news.The health assistant and health occupations classes are instructing students to alleviate some of the employee shortages in the health care industry.In preparation for a career in health care, students contribute volunteer hours at the Sunnyview Home and the Butler Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The volunteer hours are a necessary experience as students register for health-related certification tests that will add to their employability.When asked about her volunteer experience, Stacie Spratt, a health assistant junior from Butler High School said, "My clinical group visited Sunnyview before Christmas and worked on crafts with the residents. The residents had such a good time working with us."Kiley Bollman, who is a junior at Butler High School, added, "The residents get to know us and we get to know them. Working with them has made me learn things about myself.""Working with residents and providing good care is nerve-racking. Talking with the residents and listening to their stories makes the day go so fast. I know how happy it makes the residents when we work with them, so we practice our skills of nail care, mouth care, bed making and giving back rubs carefully before we go out on our clinical experiences." said Julieanne Scott, a junior at Karns City High School.A big project taken on by the health assistant and health occupations classes is sponsoring three blood drives for the Central Blood Bank. All of the organizational work required prior to the drawing of blood is started by the students.Community members may donate blood to the Central Blood Bank at any time and use the code number HV010010 to give credit to the BCAVTS scholarship fund.Scholarship money for BCAVTS students will be made available by the Central Blood Bank upon reaching the collection goal.Presenting varied opportunities for learning in and out of the classroom is an objective extended from every career and technical education class offered at BCAVTS.
