Teacher Hits Nail On The Head
Eighty 16-penny nails in, 80 16-penny nails out. The single most important idea Terry Sundsted has pounded into his nine novice builders is perfection.
“Little problems create bigger ones,” 18-year-old Paul Lucas intones as if it’s his mantra. On the house he’s building with Terry’s crew near Athol, Idaho, Paul has helped redo a roof truss, re-plumb corners and reset studs until their connection with intersecting beams is flush.
“A normal house takes 50 pounds of 16-penny nails,” Terry says. “These kids used 150 pounds. There are things I made them do five and six times. You make a mistake at the bottom, it’ll haunt you all the way to the end.”
Terry, 53, speaks from 30 years of contracting experience - and his crew listens.
“He’s really a good teacher,” says Melissa Taylor, an 18-year-old accessorized with a carpenter’s belt and a gray ball cap advertising the Young Community Builders. “This is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done.”
Terry’s crew is new on the construction scene. It’s part Americorps and part Jobs Training Partnership Act. One program helps young adults earn money for college; the other teaches job skills to young adults facing bleak futures.
The program’s need for a leader coincided with Terry’s need to counteract the empty nest at home. He’d taught carpentry to his four children, but he worried about taking on nine young adults with rocky backgrounds.
The program was his to design and emphasizes on-the-job rather than classroom training. Terry laid the foundation with lessons on carpentry math and language, safety and blueprint deciphering.
He volunteered his young crew to help build a Habitat for Humanity house and do remodeling at St. Vincent de Paul.
His crew is impressed with his patience. “He never gets frustrated,” Paul says with wonder.
“You have to allow kids to make mistakes,” Terry says. “If they think they can do something, I let them.”
Terry intended just to teach but has found himself counseling and even advocating for some of his workers in the judicial system. His 60-hour weeks have raised his blood pressure but also his satisfaction with life.
“I should’ve done this 30 years ago for as much as I enjoy the kids,” he says.
By the time his workers leave after a year or two, they’ll have carpentry skills that will earn them as much as $12 an hour, a $5,000 credit toward higher education - and new confidence to take into adulthood.
“I can see what I’ve done,” Melissa says, looking proudly at the skeleton of the new Habitat for Humanity house. “I had a part in that. A lot of people are shocked that I could do that. But I did.”
Young Community Builders needs tax-deductible, private donations to help pay its workers. Each earns $300 every two weeks. To help, call the Private Industry Council, 772-0584.
Fancy food
The rounder the belly, the better the dance. So stuff yourself full of curries and pilafs, then join the belly dancers at the Arabian Nights benefit, 8-11 p.m., March 7 for St. Vincent de Paul’s and the Coeur d’Alene Cultural Center.
This one sounds fun - Middle Eastern food from Capers Bistro, Greenbriar Catering, Lilikoi, The Marakesh, Tubs Cafe and The Wine Cellar and performances by dancers from Nah-Joom Company, Amar, Lotus Blossom Belly Dance Company and Members of the Sisters of Selket.
Wear something exotic and head to the Cultural Center. Tickets are $10 at the door. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
MEMO: Where’s the most exotic spot in the Panhandle and just what is exotic? Be adventurous for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.