There are benefits to working somewhere that teaches students crafts – just ask Sabra Shields.

Shields, who serves as Whitney M. Young Job Corps Center’s Property Supervisor, needed a shelf. She asked the carpentry instructor if it was possible for the students to build one.

“I talked to Steven Rusch, the carpentry instructor on May 3^rd, and asked him what it would take for me to have something built,” Shields said. “He just told me to get permission from Ali Morton, the Career Technical Training Manager, and if he had the materials, he would go ahead and build it.”

Shields did, and on May 10, Whitney’s carpentry students took the measurements for the project. A student named Jaylon Rice-Jones took the lead on the project. A day later, she was asked to come down and look at it to see if she was happy with the progress so far.

“They have already finished the frame on it,” she said.

The next morning, they delivered the shelf to Shields’ office.

“I gave them a little blueprint drawing that was pretty much a stick figure,” she said. “He built me exactly what I asked for.”

It may seem like a minor project, but it makes a huge difference for the property department.

“We have a lot going on back here,” Shields said. “I didn’t have enough room…Now with this, I can have everything I need.”