When it comes to kids trying to learn as best they can during the current pandemic, 90-year-old Batavia resident Ron Hecht, formerly of Elgin, believes some things are just plain essential.
“I think every person deserves a chance to have a space to do his work regardless of the finances,” Hecht said regarding remote learning and kids having to work at kitchen tables amidst cereal boxes and more. “I’m happy if there’s a way to help others do something about that.”
A group of half a dozen residents living at the Covenant Living at the Holmstad retirement living facility in Batavia recently came together before and after the holidays to turn their woodworking and painting skills into making wooden school desks that quickly found homes barely before the varnish was dry.
Interim executive director for the facility Karen Pahlke said the group of residents “has been busy since last March and April” when the pandemic first took hold making masks and that the recent woodworking project that produced 20 desks was sort of a way of giving back to the community.
“When COVID first broke out, there was great support from the community in terms of getting water and toilet paper and other products, and we actually had one of our buses set up to take donations as we weren’t going anywhere,” Pahkle said. “The desk project started in December and one of our residents Dave Anderson, who has been with us since 2014, organized the troops.”
Anderson, 72, formerly of Roselle, said he watched a YouTube video “about a guy in California that was making desks” and got inspired.
“I thought, we could bang these out here and as co-chairman of a committee that deals with woodworking, I went to the local Home Depot to price out materials,” he said. “It turns out we could make one for about $18 each, but I changed the design a bit because the guy in California used brads and glue. I wanted screws and he also left the wood raw.”
Anderson enlisted the help of Hecht, who was a professional painter for over 40 years. A man with carpentry skills himself, Hecht used a roller and brushes to apply varnish to the finished wooden desks that were built “assembly style” and with the aid of a few other residents, desks appeared in no time.
“I went to the former director Amanda Gosnell and said we could build a desk for $21 and she said to go ahead and make 20 of them,” Anderson said. “Two of us did about 90% of the carpentry work and Ron (Hecht) did about 90% of the painting.”
Anderson said the desks themselves, with dimensions of 30 inches high and a 24- by 18-inch top made of pine and 3/4-inch plywood could be built in about two hours, but that the staining added more time.
A self-employed man who repaired windshields himself, Anderson said he has had his own tools “since I was 8.”
“I’ve been making sawdust now for 65 years,” Anderson joked. “I’m a woodworker and I knew we could get these built.”
Pahlke said the Batavia United Way had set up offices in the Covenant Living facilities during the pandemic and quickly found a place for the desks at the H.C. Storm Elementary School nearby.
Anderson said to his knowledge, “the desks were all scooped up in less than 20 minutes” and that he feels “it will now be easier for some kids to sit and study.”
“I have five grandkids of my own and I know that some kids are better at this lockdown and remote learning than others,” he said.
Hecht said for him, “the project made sense” and thought it was “a great thing to do to help other people.”
Randy Johnson, 80, formerly of Wheaton, said he too helped out with the project and that the biggest takeaway was thinking about the eventual reaction of a child he would never meet.
“Before COVID, we’d go over to Storm Elementary and help with the reading program, so there is sort of a tie-in already,” Johnson said. “What I enjoyed the most but haven’t witnessed is the anticipation and look on the child’s face that received that desk. You’ll never know who got it, but you know it was appreciated.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
