Build site expanded for UCOL students

FOUR SEASON BUILD: Prospective carpentry students are being urged to enrol on the UCOL Wairarapa Certificate in Carpentry Level 4 programme and help build a home for charity at the Masterton campus in the newly extended construction area, says campus manager Angela Hewitt. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

Carpentry students at UCOL Wairarapa will be free from this year to build homes for charity at the Masterton campus no matter the weather.

Campus manager Angela Hewitt said workers from Masterton firm Rigg-Zschokke were expected to this week put the roof on an 8m extension to the purpose-built construction area and shelter built on the upper campus' Chapel St frontage in 2011.

Foundations were poured and steel framing erected at the site last week, she said, and the extended building "will further enhance the learning experience for students, providing a fully undercover facility suitable in which to build a house all year round".

The Certificate in Carpentry Level 4 programme starts later than previously advertised on March 9, she said, which allowed more time for prospective students to enrol.

She said carpentry students will this year build a two-bedroom home "that will be sold at the end of the year, with the profits going to local charities".

The first two house build projects at UCOL Wairarapa raised a total of $65,000 through Upper Hutt-based Dugdale Charitable Trust and Masterton Mitre 10 Megafor charities in the region including a two-bedroom house built in 2012 that was shifted to a Carterton site at Walnut Grove, with a share of proceeds going to the Asthma Foundation New Zealand and Lifeflight Trust.

A three-bedroom house students built in 2013 had been shifted to Greytown last year after selling at auction for $150,000 and yielding a donation of $15,000 each to Wairarapa Plunket and Life Flight Trust.

-Prospective Wairarapa students wanting to help build the next charity home can call 06 946 2301 or 0800 GO UCOL or go online to www.ucol.ac.nz for more information.