Shark Tooth Woodshop

It has been another great year in the Shark Tooth Woodshop. We build more than wood projects in this class. I have seen many young people become young adults this past year. The future is bright at SLHS!

Here are a couple top projects that our students were able to finish in the final days of school.

The Shark Tooth Woodshop went mobile today! We had the opportunity to do some work for the Gratiot County Fair for Youth in Alma repairing picnic tables and getting them ready for the summer activities. Thankful for St. Louis Public Schools for allowing our shop to support the community in many different ways.

Our students have been busy the past few months. Here are some pics of the kitchen our students built for Rick and Cindy at Renewed Resale and Door of Hope in Alma. Our school partnered with them to help provide an affordable house for a local veteran. We still have some work to do, but great progress so far.

Also pictured are some wood models that our students built that are being donated to Gratiot County Fair for Youth to raise money at their Dinner Dance fundraiser.

We want to give a shout out to Hannah at Blue Bird Pallets. She donated some power tools to our woodshop. We can’t say enough about all the support we receive from our local communities.

We had a great time delivering our custom made Christmas toys to Ashley Elementary, Fulton Elementary and both St. Louis Elementaries the past two days. We handed out over 600 toys and games to the students. All of the toys and games were hand made by the Shark Tooth Woodshop students.

Thank you to the staff and administration at St. Louis schools for supporting our woodshop. Thank you to the Gratiot County Community Foundation for supporting the shop from the very beginning. Thank you to Barry at Sherwin Williams for providing the finish. Thank you to Dan and Brandon Slater at Log Cabin Lumber for the CNC work and providing us lumber. And thank you to our students for their hard work and commitment to building these toys with the highest quality.

The Christmas toys are being wrapped! We will be delivering toys to Ashley, Fulton and St. Louis k-5 this year. Our students made nearly 800 toys. Go Sharks!

The construction of the new woodshop is underway. This is going to be such an amazing upgrade for our students. We appreciate the support from our community. Go Sharks!

We had a great time this morning presenting the St. Louis American Legion with a full set of military plaques. We will be going to the VFW in a few weeks to present them with their set.

Last spring we received our Mira 9 laser engraver. We had high expectations for what we could create and it didn’t disappoint. This past Friday we gave away over 200 Veteran plaques to a group of men and women that deserved to be honored. Without the laser we would have never been able to create such a beautiful plaque. Thank you Gratiot County Community Foundation for supporting our program through your amazing donation. Thank you St. Louis Public School for funding the lumber and giving us a shop to give back to the community. Thank you Dan at Log Cabin Lumber for the amazing wood to work with and thank you Barry and Sherwin Williams for the great finish and continuous support. But you know what makes this possible? Our amazing students that come to class everyday willing to work and serve our community. Without these students, we would never be able to provide this service to our community. Go Sharks!

Once again St. Louis High School and the Shark Tooth Woodshop would like to honor our veterans. On Friday, November 10th, we would like to invite any veteran that has served our country to the high school main office to receive a complementary veteran’s plaque. The plaques were designed and created by our students as an expression of appreciation for your service. Please come between 8:30 and 2:30 to receive your plaque and allow some of our students to express their appreciation in person.

Another quality product produced in our woodshop. This was a 2 year process with many students involved. Thankful for Eddie Memije-Ramirez, Colby Taylor, Brayden Kunkel and all the other students for their hard work.

One of the most rewarding parts of our shop is when our students can give back to our own school district. One of those ways is through our academic and sports awards as well as service awards for our district staff. Our shop has created and manufactured hundreds of awards this year. Thankful to Senior Josh Voories for his creativity and commitment to excellence.

Here is the next round of projects from the school year that deserve some celebration as we start to wrap up for the summer!

All of these projects were donated to various organizations, which is a great way for students to see that giving is way more fulfilling than receiving!

Over the next couple of days we are going to celebrate some of the work our students have accomplished this past school year!

To get started, here are our Veterans Day flags and Christmas toys. This year we gave away more than 250 flags and close to 1500 handmade toys and games!

Join me in celebrating our students’ hard work!

I want to give a shout out to Kenneth Harris who created this bowl from some scraps. He had never done anything like this and this was his first time using a lathe on such a complex project.

Well done!

Our shop had the opportunity to serve our high school music program with these cool plaques. Thankful for our shop students who worked extra hours to get these done in time. This would not have been possible without our new laser engraver. Also, a shout out to our music students who are led by Steve Lawhorne. This group is one of the best in the area. If you don’t believe it, be sure to check out the SLHS Festival of Steel this Saturday in the high school gym at 6:00pm.

A huge thank you to St. Louis Public Schools, First Baptist Church and the Gratiot County Community Foundation. Without their support we wouldn’t have this new Aeon laser engraver. These organizations have supported the Shark Tooth Woodshop from the very beginning and as a result we have supported many community organizations with donations and have impacted thousands of kids over the past fours years at Christmas. With this new addition to the shop, we look forward to serving more people in our community and continuing the process of preparing our students to be career ready.