CENTRAL POINT, Ore. — The 2020 Southern Oregon Home Show has made its way to the Jackson County Expo Center, bringing its Building the Future Build-A-Thon with it.
For the second year, four teams of high school students are competing to build four small cabins or sheds, which will be auctioned off to support skills training in southern Oregon.
On Sunday, It all took place in the Olsrud Auction and Show Arena at the expo center and began on Friday.
The schools participating are Ashland High School, Cascade Christian High School, Phoenix High School, Logos Charter School, and North Medford High School.
The experience allows students to benefit from learning hands-on vocational skills from some of the region’s leading contractors.
Team captains came from Outlier Construction, Riverdell Construction, Claudio Alvarez construction, and Snyder Creek Development.
Captains gave their time to share their professional skills with the students.
One student from Cascade Christian High School, Josiah Stranberg, said it’s been a fun experience he didn’t even know about before, now he’s glad he does.
“This is the first year I’ve done it. It’s pretty cool I’ve never built a shed like this before [but] I’ve built some smaller stuff like this so its kind of cool to be a part of a competition. I never even thought this existed, you know, coming here and competitively building small structures is pretty cool to be a part of,” Stranberg said.
Each member of the winning team will also win their own carpenter belt filled with tools and the chance to intern with a local construction company.
As their hard work is auctioned off, the money will go right to raise funds for awareness for the skills workforce in southern Oregon.
