Horowhenua College students donate sandpit diggers to Levin childcare centres

The Horowhenua College year 13 woodworking class with the sandpit diggers they made. Photo / Grace Odlum

Christmas came early for children at some of Levin’s childcare centres.

Horowhenua College’s Year 13 woodworking class have spent the year making eight sandpit diggers so they could donate one to various childcare centres in the town.

One of the students involved, Kimi O’Donnell, said they started by researching diggers online and then made a prototype.

From there they started making the diggers and had plans for more, but ran out of time when exams came up.

Horowhenua College student Bradley Burgess handing over the digger he made to Learning Links teacher Debbie Turkington and two of the children who will play with it - Akira Fricker-Tafeamaalii (left) and Carson Brodger. Photo / Grace Odlum

It was their teacher, Jason Huria, who came up with the idea.

“It was about a week before the school started and I woke up in the morning and thought ‘We’ll do something for the community’.”

He said it was his own childhood that inspired the diggers.

“I remember back to my childhood playing on these things and I thought they would be a good project for my Year 13s to do, studying the mechanics of them and how it all works.”

Huria said he left it up to the students to decide the best way to build the diggers, with one of the factors they thought about being the size of the kids and how they would play on them.

O’Donnell said it felt very meaningful creating something to donate.

Learning Links was one of the childcare centres that received a sandpit digger, and teacher Debbie Turkington said it was special to have been donated something like this.

“It’s amazing that that we’ve been given something really cool that the students have built, and our kids are going to absolutely love it. It’s going to give them a lot of enjoyment that’s for sure.”