Rockwood School District: Lafayette High GIC Students Build, Install Play Kitchen For Local Nonprofit

Press release from the Rockwood School District:

May 11, 2021

​Geometry in Construction (GIC) students from Lafayette High put the finishing touches Saturday on a project that took nearly two years to complete.Since the fall of 2019, more than 60 Lafayette GIC students over two different school years worked on putting their skills to use on a kitchen playset for Our Little Haven, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that serves young children and their families who are suffering from the effects of abuse or neglect, or facing mental and behavioral health challenges.On Saturday, around a half dozen of this year's GIC students – along with teachers Patty Mabie and Curtis Ahlers – helped unload and install the outdoor play kitchen at Our Little Haven's location in the Central West End."We made something for a good cause. Even though we didn't build the first half of it, we did finish it," said sophomore Clark Taylor. "Now we're getting to send it off and make a difference for those kids."GIC, which is offered at all four Rockwood high schools, allows students to apply real-world geometry, carpentry and design into sustainable and useful community projects. This program has provided tiny homes, sheds, benches, shelving units, dog houses and much more for nonprofits in the community.The Our Little Haven kitchen playset includes a cabinet and ​sink, an oven, a refrigerator, counter seating and a picnic table."The outdoor play kitchen will be used for many years by the children helped at Our Little Haven," said Chris Munoz, Our Little Haven development director. "Not only did the students design and build exactly what our staff was hoping for, they included their own creativity into the kitchen that will be a staple on the campus of Our Little Haven."Aside from the satisfaction of the finished product, the Lafayette students said they enjoyed emphasizing each other's strengths, working toward a common goal and seeing the practical applications of learning math and material processes."This is a very good class for anyone who wants to go into any form of construction, and for anyone who is more of that hands-on, visual learner," said sophomore CeCe Beckmann. "It makes understanding the math portion of this class a lot easier."​

​Geometry in Construction (GIC) students from Lafayette High put the finishing touches Saturday on a project that took nearly two years to complete.Since the fall of 2019, more than 60 Lafayette GIC students over two different school years worked on putting their skills to use on a kitchen playset for Our Little Haven, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that serves young children and their families who are suffering from the effects of abuse or neglect, or facing mental and behavioral health challenges.On Saturday, around a half dozen of this year's GIC students – along with teachers Patty Mabie and Curtis Ahlers – helped unload and install the outdoor play kitchen at Our Little Haven's location in the Central West End."We made something for a good cause. Even though we didn't build the first half of it, we did finish it," said sophomore Clark Taylor. "Now we're getting to send it off and make a difference for those kids."GIC, which is offered at all four Rockwood high schools, allows students to apply real-world geometry, carpentry and design into sustainable and useful community projects. This program has provided tiny homes, sheds, benches, shelving units, dog houses and much more for nonprofits in the community.The Our Little Haven kitchen playset includes a cabinet and ​sink, an oven, a refrigerator, counter seating and a picnic table."The outdoor play kitchen will be used for many years by the children helped at Our Little Haven," said Chris Munoz, Our Little Haven development director. "Not only did the students design and build exactly what our staff was hoping for, they included their own creativity into the kitchen that will be a staple on the campus of Our Little Haven."Aside from the satisfaction of the finished product, the Lafayette students said they enjoyed emphasizing each other's strengths, working toward a common goal and seeing the practical applications of learning math and material processes."This is a very good class for anyone who wants to go into any form of construction, and for anyone who is more of that hands-on, visual learner," said sophomore CeCe Beckmann. "It makes understanding the math portion of this class a lot easier."​

This press release was produced by the Rockwood School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.