By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — For a full week, select students of the Loring Job Corps Center were selected to study power tool operation and blueprint reading with Women Unlimited instructor Suzanne Graves-Hall.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Loring Job Corps student Monique Nunez, of Bridgeport Conn., shows how she used a little creativity to make her handcrafted tool box extra secure. Nunez and her classmates learned power tool skills through a Women Unlimited course, taught by instructor Suzanne Graves-Hall during a special weeklong learning opportunity from Nov. 28 through Dec. 2. Shown in back honing their blueprint reading skills are, from left, Cary Long Jr. and John Gee.
Women Unlimited, according to the group’s Web-page, is a non-profit aimed at improving the financial independence of Maine women, minorities and disadvantaged workers by providing training and access to jobs with livable wages for career in trades, construction, technical and transportation industries.
The first course taught by Graves-Hall provided students with a working knowledge of power tools as well as industry-recognized third-party certification in power tools. The second course, which a handful of the center’s male students also took part in, was a two-day course in blueprint reading.
“These were two additional courses taught at no cost to the students or the center,” Center Director Kristi Moir told an audience at the annual Evening with the Northstars program. “Around 35 students participated in the program and it was truly phenomenal,” she said.
In the morning of the second day of classes, students had a pretty good idea of reading blue prints.
And there’s a lot to read, considering they contain pretty much every detail as to where everything goes in a structure.
Additional information regarding the Augusta-based Women Unlimited can be obtained by visiting www.womenunlimited.org or by calling 1(800) 281-5259.
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
Learning to read blueprints meant a bit of collaborative effort to ensure correct answers for, at left, April Lafountain, John Greene and Emily Pocius.
