Free Camps Offer Middle Schoolers Hands-On Construction Experience
The Rosendin Foundation recently announced it has wrapped up its fourth annual TRF Camp Build, which introduced 102 middle school students in five cities to careers in the skilled trades. The free camps ran for a total of 21 days between May and July in McKinney, Texas; Austin, Texas; Huntersville, North Carolina; Sterling, Virginia; and Commerce, California, giving kids hands-on learning alongside professional electricians and builders.
After extensive safety lessons, girls and boys in grades six through nine spent their days using professional-grade tools to cut and drill wood, bend conduit, run electrical wire, pour concrete, and paint. They built lamps, birdhouses, storage bins, sculptures and other take-home projects, and got their first look at Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology used on real jobsites. Every camper left with a free bag of tools so they could keep practicing what they learned at home.
TRF Camp Build is designed to help address growing workforce challenges facing skilled trades. Because kids start forming career ideas in middle school, The Rosendin Foundation designed Camp Build to reach them at the right moment with the right people.
Volunteers from Rosendin Electric and Modular Power Solutions ran the daily programming alongside local partners including the Austin Electrical Training Alliance, the Los Angeles Electrical Training Institute and IBEW locals in each region.
TRF Camp Build is made possible through the support of Rosendin Electric, Inc. and Modular Power Solutions, alongside partners at Milwaukee Tool, DeWalt and The Swinerton Foundation, as well as sponsors including Border States, Graybar, United Rentals, Sherwin-Williams and IBEW Locals 26 and 520.
