School receives $4,000 to help build tiny home
Published at | Updated at
IDAHO FALLS — A technical high school received $4,000 which will help students buy materials and give them hands-on experience working on a big project.
The Idaho Professional Building Contractor License Review Board (PBCLRB) donated the money Wednesday to Bonneville Joint School District 93’s Technical Careers High School. According to a press release, PBCLRB has been running a voluntary licensing program for Idaho building contractors since 2006 and has now merged with the City of Idaho Falls licensing program.
To show their appreciation for the new partnership, PBCLRB donated the money to the school to help fund a tiny home project for the students and help promote construction trades.
“Hopefully the tiny home project is really going to give students real hands-on experience in terms of constructing an actual physical home, physical building. It helps them to understand the physical construction part of it and also engineering aspects that go along with that as well,” said Reginald Fuller, board member of the PBCLRB. “So it just has a lot of benefits for students and gives them a number of different paths in terms of the careers they might choose in the future.”
The students will use screw guns, put walls together and weld parts in the home that is being built for the Parade of Homes.
“It will be a big project. There will be over 100 kids involved in the end result,” said Lyndon Oswald, Technical Careers High School Principal. “I am just happy as can be to come have these people present (a check).”
The students at Technical Careers High School have built cabinetry, sheds, chicken coops, and houses before.
“We get pretty excited about our projects and showing our craft and how well our students work,” said Oswald.
The tiny home Oswald said they are planning to build will begin in the spring and should be finished by September. He explained the project has been on the back burner for a couple of years because tiny homes are expensive but with the $4,000 donation, Oswald said it’s helpful.
“We couldn’t do it without generous people in the community,” he said.
Oswald explained in the end, he wants the tiny home to be a showpiece for the elementary and middle school kids.
“We will probably use it for a year to promote our school and then we’ll probably reach out to the community and ask if somebody thinks it’s worthy of owning,” Oswald said.
