Puck Helps With Spark Fundraiser
At the IKM-Manning school in Manning, Iowa, students get the opportunity to learn career-driven skills in a very specific class. The Spark class, available to kids in seventh and eighth grade, is an exploratory class that gives students hands-on business experience. Students create, market, and sell items in the student store to blend entrepreneurship skills and soft skills in a real-world setting.
For their holiday project, Spark students came to tour Puck Enterprises and make Christmas trees. The Christmas trees were made of rebar and topped with steel stars. While creating the trees, the students got to use Puck’s equipment to try new skills. Students learned to measure, cut, grind, and weld the 3D evergreen art before taking them to the painting station. When the trees were ready to paint, the students gave them a coat of black paint at Puck’s painting station.
Their Experience
Audrey, a Spark student who helped weld the rebar trees, says she’s been to Puck before. “I’m not interested in a career in this, but I do weld at the [family] farm. I help with some of that stuff.” Preston also helped weld, and could see himself doing it again. “I think welding would be something really cool to do in the future. I think it could help a lot of people out with stuff.” David, who helped grind the rebar used to make the trees, said the experience at Puck was pretty cool. “I liked when the employee showed us how they cut the stars out.”
“My favorite part was being able to interact with the workers,” says Preston. “To see what they do, and then showing me how to do it.” Whether it was the teachings of the Puck employees or the natural talent of the Spark students, the end product looked fantastic.
Their Results
Spark students sold their Christmas trees at their latest Spark Sale during the High School basketball games. The students prepared many Christmas gift items for the sale, including holiday greenery gift boxes, baked goods and desktop basketball hoops. In preparation for the sale, each rebar tree was strung with lights beforehand to give the metal tree more cheer. Each tree was sold for $35. Combined with all sales from the night, Spark students made over $2,000 at the December 19th sale.
Puck Enterprises is very proud of the students in Spark, and are happy we were able to help them develop skills in an area they may not have had prior experience in. Puck is invested in our community and helping to make improvements or lend a hand where we can. Fill out a donation request to find out if Puck can assist your project, or keep up with our work by signing up for our newsletter.
