Student participating in the Summer Tech Exploratory HVAC and Carpentry program pose for a photo with Northern Marianas Technical Institute CEO Jodina Attao, left, and Board of Education Vice Chair Herman Atalig, front row, right.
Summer Tech participants enjoy light refreshments at one of the six picnic tables they built. Back row, from left: Zayne Castro, Jolivalyn Kanemoto and Deon Micheal Ogarto-Sablan. Front row, from left, Josiah Quitano and Ziggy Castro.
ON July 27, participants of the Northern Marianas Technical Institute’s Summer Tech program created and then donated six wooden picnic tables to the Center for Living Independently or CLI during a summer camp award ceremony in Lower Base.
According to Ben Babauta, NMTech marketing and outreach coordinator, 37 Summer Tech Exploratory HVAC and Carpentry program participants spent two weeks learning basic HVAC and carpentry skills at the institute’s Lower Base campus.
Babauta said under the HVAC portion of the summer camp, students learned the components and functions of air-conditioning and refrigeration units. They also received hands-on practice on HVAC units at the NMTech campus, he added.
Babauta said the students are between the ages of 11 and 17. Of the 37 students, six are from Tinian, five are from Rota, and the rest are from Saipan.
As part of their programmatic activities the participants measured, cut and assembled the wooden picnic tables that now belong to the CLI whose vision is “to provide a comprehensive range of services which will enable our people with disabilities to live as independently as they choose within the community.”
Emeterio Fitial, CLI president, said the newly donated tables will be a much welcome addition to their facilities.
“We just acquired a new building and we have more than 50 consumers who come up to the center. So these tables will be very useful for them because we always have activities outside,” Fitial said. [The tables] will be used for them to sit around, and when we have gatherings we don’t have to rent any more tables because we have our own now.”
The CLI also teaches its consumers to cook, said Tiana Ranjo, the organization’s health education specialist. Consumers will now enjoy their meals on the picnic tables, she added.
Zayne Castro is one of the NMTech summer camp participants. He will be in 8th grade when classes begin at Hopwood Middle School. He said he was enthusiastic to learn carpentry.
“I thought it was interesting how people could just build things out of pieces of wood,” Castro said. “They could build almost anything they wanted. It seems like a very fun skill to have.”
Castro said he measured pieces of wood and then joined them together with screws. Prior to joining the program he had no experience with carpentry, but is interested in developing his new skills outside of NMTech, he said.
Jolivalynn Kanemoto, another summer camp participant, said the program opened her eyes to what a career in HVAC could do for her.
“I wasn’t really interested in it at first,” Kanemoto said, “but as I started going to the classes I became more invested in it.”
“It was fun. I learned some things that I never learned before,” Kanemoto added.
She said she could pursue HVAC after high school.
“I think it’s interesting. I feel like I could be doing that in the future,” Kanemoto added.
