LEE COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — A vocational program in eastern Kentucky has spent the last 10 years giving students real-world construction experience, with results reaching buyers across multiple states.
The 'Building It Forward' initiative began in 2016 when schools in Knott County, Lee County and Phelps each received $15,000 grants from the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative.
The grants gave students the chance to build tiny homes that were eventually marketed and sold in multiple communities.
Lee County ATC is among the schools still active in the program. Vocational students there, supervised by licensed instructors, are currently constructing a 24-foot tiny home. Once complete, the home goes on the market.
Tiny home consultant Danny Vance said the project offers students an unmatched learning environment.
"I don't know where there would be another project that's any more real and a better experience for these kids than this project because it entails every aspect of a home, from bottom to top," Vance said.
When a completed home sells, all proceeds support future student-built housing projects. That self-sustaining model, combined with the KVEC grant, allows the program to continue indefinitely.
"It's a self sustaining grant that just keeps going for as long as they want to build," Vance said.
Lee County ATC Principal Rachel Miller said the partnership fills a critical gap in the school's budget.
"We have a limited budget here and so without these partnerships our students wouldn't have the opportunities to do things like build a tiny house and learn all of these skills," Miller said.
For students like Logan Holland, the experience goes beyond construction techniques.
"It's giving me hands on work experience being able to work with people knowing how to work with people," Holland said.
"Building these houses you'll learn a lot, they do everything from the ground up," Sebastian Roberts, another student at ATC, said.
That rewarding feeling even stretches to program instructors.
"It's very rewarding for the students to get to do it. I've been here two and a half years and it feels like I still want to keep doing it because it's such a great project," Carpentry Instructor Austin Addison said.
In the last 10 years, 35 tiny homes built by students through the KVEC partnership have been sold and delivered to people in multiple states.
