Future builders tackle present
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Under baleful glares from a goat and a goose, Jeff Uyeda's Honolulu Community College carpentry class this week framed up and rebuilt a kitchen and supply area that's part of the barn at Honolulu Zoo's petting zoo, replacing structures destroyed by fire earlier in the year.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
Their labor saved the zoo about $10,000.
Gloria Garcia, a student in the Carpentry 41 class at Honolulu Community College, assists with a frame for the petting zoo at Honolulu Zoo. Thanks to the students' labor, the zoo saved about $10,000.
"If there's a good cause, it's a win-win situation for my students," said Uyeda, who joined his 13 students as a work crew for the zoo project. "The students get their experience and the zoo gets their barn."
The zoo has been struggling without a kitchen for animal food preparation in that area since the May fire. As a result, they've had to move food long distances, which has been difficult for staff.
"The Zoological Society, our fund-raising arm, put out a community plea and HCC stepped up to the plate, and I'm really pleased with what they're doing," said Tommy Higashino, assistant zoo director. "We were kind of depressed because of the fire and had no prospects of rebuilding. Hopefully this is the start of something.
"If they're a community resource we'd like to do more small projects. Times are pretty tough and money and resources are really stretched."
Students in Carpentry 41 were studying rough-framing, so the project meshed nicely with their needs, said Bert Shimabukuro, division chairman for the HCC carpentry program.
"Normally we'd do this in a lot we have at the school and we'd tear it down afterward," he said. "This is much more meaningful because the students are able to visit later and say 'we put this up.' "
Gloria Garcia, the only woman in the class, plans to do just that when her son turns 1 year old next week.
"I had planned to bring him out here," said the 27-year-old Navy wife, who also works part time as a waitress while going back to school to study carpentry.
"The time we were here before, the petting zoo was closed. Now that I know it's going to be open, it's going to be so nice to bring him down here. I can say 'Look, this is what mommy built.' "
Garcia is pursuing carpentry because her Texas upbringing included a mother and grandmother who were good with a hammer and saw, and because other careers have fallen flat.
"Now that I'm doing it, I love it," she said. "It was the best choice. And once I finish here I'll get a business degree and open up my own contracting business."
Women enrolled in nontraditional, male-dominated programs at HCC have their tuition waived. "We encourage that," Shima-bukuro said. "They get a free ride."
The class expects to wrap up construction today by completing the roof framing and walls. The Zoological Society paid for the building materials.
The HCC carpentry students have helped with other community projects in the past, but it's always within constraints of the curriculum and has been at the discretion of the instructor. Previously Uyeda's class helped out at a spouse abuse center, doing a few days of handiwork projects.
"We just assisted fixing windows, whatever they wanted us to do," Uyeda said.
"Next semester, for instance, we may be installing cabinets that we either prefab or purchase," Shimabukuro said. "That's something we could possibly undertake if someone would ask us."
With the barn now close to completion, Higashino said the 30 petting zoo animals should be back by the weekend in their proper places. They had been moved out temporarily during construction because they didn't like the noise, he said.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
