Massachusetts vocational students build bureaus for kids leaving homeless shelters
WAKEFIELD - Students at Northeast Metropolitan Tech vocational high school in Wakefield are building dressers for children transitioning out of homeless shelters.
"Children each need a dresser and seeing them get one would make a kid happy," Northeast Metropolitan Tech student Kimberly Juarez told WBZ TV.
Students appreciate giving back
This is the first year of the build-a-bureau program with Northeast Metropolitan Tech's sophomore carpentry students. Not only is it honing their carpentry techniques, but it's helping them appreciate giving back. "I feel like it's a good cause, doing something for a good cause," said student Jules Hernandez.
Camber Development and Dacon Corportation are funding the pilot program between the school and non-profit, Mission of Deeds. Camber and Dacon told WBZ TV that society's challenges such as homelessness made them rethink the role they can take as private companies to help. The company's told WBZ TV that pre-built, donated dressers that families transitioning out of shelters can get from local non-profits like Mission of Deeds, are typically too large for apartment stairwells that families move into.
The students, who had never built furniture before, found a pattern for smaller, three-drawer, bureaus and starting building. "They take a lot in the beginning because you're getting used to doing it but the more you do it, the more you just get the hang on it," student Julia Ferrera explained.
Ferrera told WBZ TV building them gets fun once you get the hang of it. The students are making 40 bureaus this year. The organization said that some transitioning children have to keep their clothes in trash bags until they get furniture and that these dressers will fix that problem.
"I just want them to be happy"
"I just want them to be happy and excited because I know for most of them it's their first furniture they've had and that's just exciting. I just hope they're happy," Ferrera continued.
If the program is successful, Mission of Deeds will expand it to other vocational schools in the state.
Alongside the bureaus, the program received a logo and 150 stuffed lions from the Jimmy Fallon book series to give to transitioning children for comfort.