BVCS Trades Program, Re-tooled

This semester’s high school trades class is a lesson in more than construction: it’s a lesson in sharing. Between them, students are sharing one chop saw, one carpenter’s square, one quick square, one impact driver and one air nailer. Many of the tools don’t even belong to the school…they belong to the course instructor, Mr. Lee Corneau.

Trades class shouldn’t be an exercise in sharing…at least not at this level. That’s why we’re so excited to announce an exciting partnership.

Mr. Corneau, together with Mr. Fuellbrandt, took the initiative to approach the Construction Foundation of British Columbia (a charitable organization whose mission is to foster greater trades engagement with students). Through their successful grant application to the CFBC, BVCS is the grateful recipient of a generous grant of funds to purchase tools for our shop program.

To extend the impact of their grant, the CFBC challenged BVCS to approach local contractors to also contribute towards this ‘tool purchase’ initiative. Local contractors responded with strong support. Together they nearly matched the amount of the grant itself (and thereby nearly doubled our buying power). The two-way partnership between CFBC and BVCS was now a three-way partnership with local contractors.

To BVCS, it’s a priority to purchase locally whenever possible. We are grateful for the excellent, reduced pricing extended to us by BV Home Centre, Smithers Lumber and Smithers Home Hardware. They extended the purchasing power that we were granted through the donations of the CFBC and local contractors.

We’ve begun ordering commercial-grade construction tools and are excited to see them start to arrive in student hands for this and future years of trades training! Mr. Corneau can now take his personal tools back home.