Students donate their work to charities in the San Diego area

Cabinets and guitars created by Palomar Cabinet and Furniture Technology classes are being donated to people in need.

Students in Professor Brendan Mathews’ Cabinet Manufacturing class are donating kitchen cabinets for Generate Hope, a women’s shelter in San Diego for victims of human trafficking. The project was started by Woodworking Student Gordan Axelson, 59, after the idea was brought to his attention in a conversation at his Church with a friend from the organization.

During the Fall 2016 semester, Axelson worked with Professor Mathews to create the preliminary design, then brought it to Generate Hope for approval. The project started on April 24, with 12-15 people working on it daily, according to Axelson.

Axelson said that he is appreciative of the class because everyone volunteered to help work on the kitchen cabinets.

“It’s a wonderful class,” said Axelson.

According to Professor Mathews, installation will take place on May 19th-20th and will continue on the 26th-27th. The project is entirely completed by students in the class, and the choice of whether to assist in the installation of the cabinets is completely up to the students.

“It’s a public service project. There’s no financial incentive for anyone to do it. It’s the opportunity to do a project from start to finish so we can actually see all phases of the process; we get to design it, we get to build it, and then we get to install it,” said Mathews.

Additionally, guitars are being created and donated by Professor Corky Shelton’s Wood Products Production class to elementary schools and veterans through the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM).

Shelton said that although the dynamic of the class includes a variety of student personalities with some taking more initiative than others, most have been enthusiastic about the project. He also said that this project is different than previous ones because it involves manufacturing similar to factory building rather than handwork. The project has been in progress since the beginning of the Spring 2017 semester, and the guitars will be presented to NAMM for an event for National Music Making Day in June at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad.

According to Teaching Assistant of the class Mark Hudson, the guitars will be featured in a guitar circle at the event in which a group of musicians will be playing guitars, followed by a display of the guitars that includes an explanation of the production process of creating the guitars.

Hudson said there has been a lot of support for the wood working program at Palomar from NAMM, and Palomar students are able to attend NAMM by becoming members of NAMM Generation Next for a minimal cost.

“We get a lot of support from the outside from people that know what we’re doing and the cause of perpetuating what we’re doing here,” said Hudson.

After the event, the guitars will be donated to schools in need through Guitars in the Classroom and Wounded Warriors, grant recipients of the NAMM Foundation.