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Representing Massachusetts at the national SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas City, Missouri this past month, the team completed their mission by taking the top spot among 48 competing Community Service teams from across the country, all of whom had qualified earlier by taking gold medals at their respective state competitions. In Kansas City, Community Service teams from all over the country were judged on the quality of their project, their 7 to 10 minute live presentation, and a book that recorded their activities. Awards were presented on Friday evening, June 24 in Kansas City’s Kemper Arena, where about 12,000 people saw the Greater Lawrence Technical School team come on stage and climb to the top step where they received their gold medals in an Olympic-type ceremony. “Walk With Me, Talk With Me” was the title of the team’s Community Service project, which began with GLTS SkillsUSA members serving as side walkers for Iron-stone Farm’s therapeutic horse-manship program in Andover, and culminated in students from several career areas, including Carpentry, Metal Fabrication and Autobody, collaborating to build a 32-foot long, 5-foot wide handicapped access ramp for riding students that was dedicated and put into use in mid-June. Along the way, Fashion/Interior Design students made horse blankets, Metal Fabricators created a demonstration horse for the state presentation, future cosmetologists added a mane and tail, and a Construction & Property Management junior crafted a wooden stand for the horse. In all, 14 of the school’s 18 career areas were involved in some way in the year-long initiative. Rafael Sanquintin came to school Monday morning with his gold medal in hand to show his friends. He was beaming from ear to ear. “I thought we would get silver, because I wasn’t sure our book had everything we needed,” he said. When their names were announced, “we screamed and jumped up and down.”
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It was a golden year for the SkillsUSA
Community Service team at Greater Lawrence Technical
School. Team Captain Gloriluz Rosario started with a gold
medal in TQM at a fall leadership conference, and then
led her three-person Community Service team, including
Kirssi Gonzalez and Rafael Sanquintin to a state win in
Marlborough on April 30.