Lee Little lifts the first plank of wood for what will be the restored ceiling of the old one-room Foltz School off Route 8 south of Slippery Rock on Saturday. Volunteers from the Eastern Atlantic States Council of Carpenters are helping restore the building.

Donated labor went into installing donated lumber in the latest Foltz School restoration.

Seven carpenters, five journeymen and two apprentices, from the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters that covers Butler, Beaver and Allegheny counties, began installing a new ceiling in the one-room schoolhouse near the Old Stone House on Route 8 in Brady Township.

Eric Dixon of Boyers, the council representative said, “One of our members, Matt Martin, who lives in Boyers, is involved in the group that deals with the Jennings Environmental Education Center.

“He's the one who brought the information to the council and we mobilized to see what we could do,” said Dixon.

Wil Taylor, the manager of the Jennings Environmental Center which is in charge of the schoolhouse, said, “One of the carpenters in the local is a member of our friends group. He heard about the project and said the local's carpenter apprentices need volunteer work.”

Taylor said Martin put him in contact with the carpenter's council and the arranged a date for the carpenters — all members of Local 420 — to begin work on the ceiling.

Dixon said, “We have a program for the membership of the union to participate in volunteering through the council area to give back to the community.”The ceiling itself is made up of tongue-and-grove planks that were prepared by Scott McKee's carpentry classes at the Butler County Vocational-Technical School from a pile of rough-cut lumber donated by Butler County Commissioner Kevin Boozel.Taylor said there should be enough lumber left over to install three-feet-high wainscoting around the walls of the schoolroom.That remains to be seen, as Dixon said the carpenters will return this weekend to continue the work.“We're going to be going back multiple times,” he said. “It's three-inch tongue-and-groove. It's got to cover quite a bit of area. I think it will take three to four visits. “This volunteer work is our way of giving back to the community, said Dixon. “And it's a way to spread our message that we want to promote and provide a respectable living wage and raise the standards of living.“We want to get the message out that we are part of the community,” he said.The ceiling and wainscoting is just the latest of the remodeling projects taking place in the one-time township school that was built in 1880 on the site of a former log school.

The school closed in 1963 after 83 years of classes and fell into disrepair with the wooden frame, roof and floor falling to rot.Taylor said, “We have had the property for some time. We're rehabbing everything. It's under construction right now. We're installing insulation and drywall and collecting artifacts.”A team of volunteers fabricated a replica bell tower made to resemble the building's 1920s appearance and replaced the broken windows with imitations made of wood, not glass.Right now, Foltz School is closed to the public, but Taylor said if plans and funding come through, the school could be open for public viewing in the fall.The building's interior is still empty. There's even still scorch marks from the fire that destroyed the original bell tower.

Tim Barros measures a piece of wood for ceiling restoration efforts on the old Foltz School off Route 8 south of Slippery Rock on Saturday. Volunteers from the Eastern Atlantic States Council of Carpenters will be spending the next few weekends helping restore the building.

Above, Tim Barros measures a piece of wood before cutting it for the ceiling restoration efforts on the old Foltz School on Saturday. Volunteers from the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters are helping restore the building. At left, Mike Ferringer tests a nail gun before nailing in the first piece of the new ceiling in the old schoolhouse.