Hot houses

 

 

Top: Mitch McGuire, a 2008 graduate of the VISION construction program, is now a professional builder and a volunteer. Bottom: Students put the finished house on the market. Proceeds fund scholarships.

It’s the middle of a Wisconsin winter, with winds up to 15 mph and temperatures below freezing, but a dozen students here don’t seem to notice. A mile from the Hartford Union High School campus, the students move methodically across a roof, nailing down plywood. By the end of the school year, the entire house will be finished and on the market.

Students at this school have already sold 15 other homes, with the proceeds funding a scholarship program. Called VISION, or Vocational Instruction Supporting Individual Occupational Needs, the project is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Hartford, Wis., USA. The homes are so attractive that Rotarian Ed Majkowski, VISION project chair for 15 years until 2006-07, bought one in 2003.

Majkowski says he never suspected he’d end up living in the house, even though he was looking to trade in his historic residence for something more modern. “We were pretty much finished, but I had to drop off a light fixture. It was a sunny day, and my wife and I walked in, and she said, ‘Why don’t we buy this house?’” As construction manager, he trusted the structural integrity of the home, but he also liked the design – the work of high school architecture students.

A photo gallery of homes lines the school’s walls, showing off a range of contemporary styles, all with professionally landscaped yards. This year, the builders even boast certification by Energy Star, providing 25 percent more efficiency than standard homes.

Hartford lies at the fringes of metropolitan Milwaukee, not quite suburban, not quite rural. Barns and silos still dot the landscape in this town of 13,000, situated close to a popular national forest and home to both the state’s largest bar and a Catholic shrine that draws visitors worldwide for its purported healing powers. Today, Hartford is a town in transition, with traditional jobs in agriculture and small manufacturing slowly disappearing.

The VISION project not only funds scholarships but also gives students hands-on exposure to a variety of potential careers and energizes them along the way. “We’ve kept kids in high school through this project,” Majkowksi says.

“Maybe not all of them are going to be carpenters, but we want them to walk out of here with a feeling of pride,” says John Lonergan, a carpentry instructor at the school and VISION project manager, as he supervises the students who are working with nail guns along the eaves. “This was a hole in the ground when we started. Drive past here 10 years from now – they’re going to be able to say ‘I did that.’”

Originally, the scholarships were awarded based on academic achievement. As profits grew and the Rotarians recouped their original investment, they decided to give the extra money to the group that was putting so much sweat into the project: the carpentry students themselves. Today, there are four $1,000 scholarships, which recipients can use for college, technical school, or professional apprenticeships.

That first year’s VISION house sold for $119,000, which, minus expenses, left $2,000 for the scholarship fund, $2,000 for more tools and a partial repayment of small loans from Rotarian investors, and most important, the original $25,000 investment for the lot. That was used to buy another lot the following year. The 2003 house, sold to Majkowski, went for $200,000.

The students don’t do all the work – professional contractors are brought in for things like plumbing, electrical, and excavation. There’s a benefit to that: The local contractors work side by side with the students, teaching their trades. Jesse Jankowski, a junior, eyes his fellow students on the roof. “It’s giving me good experience, and I am at the point where I am trying to decide if this is a job choice, if I really want to do this.”

As the project has grown, so has the curriculum. Students from landscaping, interior design, and video classes now work on the VISION homes. Even the marketing class puts theory to the test by creating promotional materials and a walking tour booklet. To date, more than 500 students have participated.

Among the graduates is Mitch McGuire. On the roof of a partially constructed home in Hartford, he scrambles beam to beam. Below is a sign, advertising McGuire’s construction business – “the next generation of builders.” McGuire started the company shortly after high school, influenced by what he learned his senior year building a VISION house. “It started out as just a class,” he says during a break. “It snowballed from there. I realized I was good at it.” He also learned he could excel as a leader. He now employs former students in his business.