Welding Class Raise Money by Selling Yard Ornaments

The welding students of the Troy-Pike Center for Technology are selling their handcrafted decorations as a fundraising campaign for their school organization, the Skill USA Club. The students are excited for the sale, which showcases what they learned from welding class.

One of the Pike County High School students who are part of the class is Zach Kilpatrick. He said that his favorite part of the class is when they are using the cutting tools. He learned the proper way of cutting in order to prevent mistakes that are hard to fix.

The idea to sell yard ornaments began last year. The welding instructor first made the decorations for fun and people began offering to buy them Rachael Brooks, counselor of the center, said that they were looking for fundraising projects and selling the yard ornaments is a good way to do it. They hope that it will be a start of a holiday tradition for the welding class.

All the yard ornaments are made by the students of the welding class. They made the items and came up with the idea of placing glitters on the decorations. The students are also trying their best to do their best.

To help the students start with the project, funds for the materials came from the Perkins funds. Creating the decors is a meticulous process. The students need to hand the metal on racks to create outlines with the use of a projector or by hand. Then they utilize an oxygen acetylene torch to cut the material. In some cases, they use a plasma electrical cutter. The last stage is smoothing the edges and applying paint on the decorations.

The students are open to requests. They can cut decorations in holiday shapes. They can also do other designs according to the preferences of the customers.