WILTON – A colorful new Bass Park sign now hangs from a heavy metal post created by a Foster Regional Applied Technology Center student in the welding program.
Sasha Collins Faunce helped hoist the new sign up to the waiting hooks dangling from her sturdy, 12-foot tall black metal post at the entrance to the park where a wooden and broken post once stood. She made the metal post with its cross-arm, chain support, top and bottom caps and anchor spikes with guidance from her welding class instructor at Foster Tech, Rob Olsen.
As Collins Faunce, 18, of East Wilton, pictured at left with Silas Rogers, 13, of Wilton who is helping out, watched Parks Director Frank Donald and assistant Joe Toner dig the deep hole to install her post, she credited her work to Olsen. It was Betty Colley Shibles who called Olsen and asked if he had a student who might be interested in creating a metal post for the sign. Olsen recommended Collins Faunce to do the work.
Where weeds once reigned, the park’s entrance was planted by Wilton’s students with hundreds of bright orange and yellow marigolds they had grown in their classrooms for the Miracle of Marigolds program. The new sign and post added the final exclamation point to a project that involved area students in the beautification of the well-used park across from the blue waters of Wilson Lake.
Shibles has spearheaded several projects to spiff up Wilton this year. Along with her marigold project she had partnered with Rocky Hill Landscaping in East Wilton to complete, Shibles and her army of volunteers painted up many of the downtown’s storefronts and the town office using private donations.
The next phase of the project, to fix a retaining wall and steps at the foot of the lake, has also been completed with the parking area work next on her to-do list.
Collins Faunce, who graduated from Mt. Blue High School earlier this month, will be heading north to Calais in a few weeks to continue her metal work study at Washington County Community College. She was first introduced to welding in her junior year at Foster Tech and took another course this year that included designing and making tables.
Working with Shibles on design ideas for the post she had in mind, Collins Faunce took that back to the metalshop and, with Olsen’s suggestions on how to go about it, went to work. The sign depicting the lake with a loon was created by Signworks, Inc. of Farmington,
“I liked the hands-on experience and was glad to help out, Collins Faunce said smiling.
|
|
The town of Wilton’s Green Trust Fund, which helps provide Wilton students with unique educational experiences, helped fund Collins Faunce’s project. The Green Trust Fund is named for a former teacher in the Wilton schools and is issued each year to a high school student from Wilton.
According to Shibles who grew up here, “Miss Green was the stern, strict teacher, but she was also one of the best teachers anyone could have as far as teaching grammar which was certainly important as one grew up in the 1950s. Leaving seventh grade, one knew grammar for the rest of their lives.”
“Miss Green would be extremely pleased at the enthusiasm Sasha has for her work,” Shibles said.
