Middelsex County Vocational students work on a new sign for the YMCA.
By: Joseph Harvie
Six teenagers, their teacher, a pile of concrete blocks, a few bags of mortar, and a plan.
It may sound like an episode of "This Old House," but this scene played out Friday and Monday at the South Brunswick Family YMCA on Culver Road where students in the masonry program at the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School in East Brunswick started work on a new sign for the facility, said Tom Libassi, executive director of the YMCA.
"It’s a win, win situation for everyone," Mr. Libassi said Friday. "I get a sign and they get experience."
Mr. Libassi said a local contractor, who asked to remain anonymous, donated all the materials.
The sign, which will be completed by the students, will be made out of brick and will be near the entrance and will replace an existing wooden one that said, in small letters, South Brunswick Family YMCA. Mr. Libassi said the sign originally said the future home of the South Brunswick Family YMCA, but was painted over once the facility opened.
On Friday, the six students and their teacher, Scott Marshall, built the sign’s foundation out of 8-inch by 8-inch by 16-inch concrete blocks.
Mr. Marshall mainly supervised as the students lined the blocks with mason mix, or "mud" as they called it, and stacked them up evenly in a 25-inch deep hole that ran about 8 feet long and 1-foot wide.
They set the first two rows of blocks as evenly as possible, but ran into trouble when several sank into the ground.
"That’s OK, we’ll even it out with some mud," Mr. Marshall said.
Mr. Marshall said this was the first time in about four years that students got to work on a project outside of the school.
"We used to go out and do repairs on low-income housing," Mr. Marshall said. "We used to have access to a county van, but they took that away and we mainly stay at the school now."
Mr. Marshall said taking the students out is a good experience for them.
"A lot of these kids would rather stay at home and do the couch potato thing, playing video games," Mr. Marshall said. "They need to learn how to work hard because there is a lot of money in this field. It’s not like there is a shortage of building going on in this area."
The kids enjoyed being out of the classroom setting. They said their normal school days include one to two hours of masonry classes.
They also said that what they learned in the classroom was put to good use last week.
"In class we do basic ways of laying brick and they give us work on what to put in between them to make them steady," Danny Rizik, 16, said.

