Brandon Tennyson, on left, concentrates on making a precise cut as Clint Lowe, on right, holds the wood in place on Wednesday behind the Mary Wood Weldon Memorial Library in Glasgow, Kentucky.

GLASGOW, Ky. — Typical high school shop and carpentry classes, for decades, have managed to give students an understanding of the craft that allows them to produce birdhouses or spice racks that a mother could be proud of. Students in a not-so-typical carpentry class in western Kentucky are showcasing their skills on a much larger scale to benefit their community.

Behind a Glasgow, Kentucky, library this week, students from the Barren County Area Technology Center continued their work replacing old boards on the library’s outdoor storage shed.

One student, Luke Logsdon, balanced himself on a ladder as he inspected a board he had hammered onto the side of the shed while James Spence, the Construction Carpentry teacher, oversaw his other students taking measurements and making cuts to long pieces of wood.

Spence said the skills the students use on this project are the same ones they have learned in the classroom.

“Everything that they’re using today is what we’ve been over throughout the semester,” he said. “We’ve got first-semester students and then I have students that are returning for their second class.”

Spence said projects like this “gives ’em hands-on training and experience.”

“It’s something that they can tell people about,” he said. “I hope it makes them feel good that they’re doing something in the community.”

Spence said his students have also completed other community projects such as constructing score stands at the county soccer complex and building shelves for the Boys and Girls Club and shelves for the coaches’ closet at a local park.

“It shows the community that we’re out in the community doing projects for the community,” he said.

Senior Dylan Priddy worked on nailing boards together and said it felt good to see the finished product.

Mollie Settle, also a senior, said Spence’s carpentry class is the first class she has taken at the area technology center. During the library project this week, she said she went around helping out other students however she could.

Settle was the only female student working on the project, and she said being the only one is different, “but I like it. It’s fine.”

Barren County ATC Principal Ashley Bell said the carpentry project helps showcase the students’ skills to the community, as well as allowing the students to see a physical product made from their own hands.

“I think it provides students with an opportunity to have some ownership in our community,” she said. “And to see that what they contribute to the community can make a difference.”

Settle said working on a tangible project is a great addition to learning skills in a classroom.

“It’s a lot more rewarding to see what you’ve done,” she said. “To see the progress you make every day. I like it.”

Perkins writes for the Glasgow, Kentucky Daily Times.