Monticello Live

Shawn Curtis is the Monticello Middle School EAST facilitator.

“A few years ago (2016-2017) I had two young men that had a project idea to foster a love of fishing among students. Their primary focus was to foster that love of fishing with their classmates with disabilities. The two came up with the project idea to construct a handicap-accessible dock on our campus pond. The young men, Zach Jones (then 8th grade) and Jackson White (then 7th grade), made numerous contacts to get ideal specifications, designed a 3d model of the dock in a CAD program, printed several 3d models of their design (a 16 x 8 “T” dock) to show the Monticello School Board during their pitch for approval. The school board approved and they moved forward with fundraising ideas. Partnering with our local State Farm Agent Chris Bryant, we did a fundraiser selling chicken quarter plate lunches for $10.00 each, which resulted in EAST selling over 400 lunches and raising $4,000. Zack Diemer, Jeannie Burnett, and French Wynne with Campbell Global, LLC supported the project with a $1,000 donation. Local company, Interfor Sawmill, also wanted to have a hand in bringing this project to life with their $500 donation, bringing the total funds raised by the EAST students to $5,500. White and Jones then contacted Tiger Docks and purchased a floating dock kit. They then met with Marty Baker, owner of Allied Plumbing and Hardware Supply, where Mr. Baker discounted the $2,500 of lumber needed to half of that.

So with approval, funds raised, a dock kit, and a great deal on lumber, we moved forward with the construction phase. We partnered with our Occupational Education Center here on campus and Greg Loveless and his woodworking class constructed a beautiful dock. We made contact with a local concrete company, Select Concrete, that donated 4 yards of concrete for the footing of the dock, and our awesome maintenance team transported and assembled our dock at the pond.
It is our hope that you would be willing to be part of this event. Willing to help show the state that (12, 13, 14 year old) students are doing huge things for the greater good and positively impacting the community. That this project, as well as many other ones, are teaching these students to give instead of take, to build instead of breakdown, and that they can make a difference.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 10th, 2019 at 12:45 am and is filed under Monticello School News, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.