WOOD RIVER - The East Alton-Wood River Rotary Club and East Alton-Wood River Community High School vocational students have paired together for a sculpture project for the Wood River firehouse.
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East Alton-Wood River Rotary Club President Paul Guccione said the project with the students perfectly fit the Rotary’s motto of service to the community.
“The sculpture is in the form of a fireman rescuing a child and in order to get this completed, the students did the leg work on all of this to put it together,” he said.
“Rotary came up with the funding needed for the program with some help from local corporations. The statue will be finished in May. I am terribly proud of the people who have worked on the sculpture. We are getting the word out so people are anticipating it, but there is no official release date yet.”
Jacob Sitze, the EA-WR vocational teacher said the firehouse sculpture project has been a great experience for the vocational students at East Alton-Wood River Community High School.
“The welding students were exposed to new ideas learning to create, design, and engineer a sculpture through the use of skilled trades. I am proud of the students and their efforts to go above and beyond with the project. The students had the privilege of attending the welding program at Lewis and Clark Community College where they worked with Travis Jumper and John Zumwalt to cut out and weld the flames. The students opted to put the badge insignia into a sign for the sculpture. I reached out to Ranken Technical College for the use of their Precision Machining program to have the sign completed.
“I would like to thank Jeff Ogle (Ranken) for his efforts and allowing his program to help and Christopher Clinton (Ranken) for his time and hard work with the programming and machining of the sign. I would like to thank the following people that donated to the project: Kevin Bense from A.J. Oster for material donation, Werts Welding for material donation, and Pat Ruby from the Restoration House for painting the project. Without their time and effort, this project would not have been possible. It was a pleasure working with the East Alton-Wood River Rotary, having the students complete such an elaborate project. This project exhibits the talent that our students have. The firehouse project was a great way to give back to the Wood River Fire Department for all that they do within the community.”
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