Power Tools for a Power Purpose

Honestly, when it comes to power tools, I’m not sure what the appropriate age is for use by a child.  My nephew, Joshua, is six years old and he has some toy power tools; you know, the kind that spin and make noise like a real drill. Only with his the drill bit is just a smooth piece of plastic that would break apart long before it would ever break skin.  He loves them.  But he can’t build anything with them, nothing real anyways.  But on Saturday I had the privilege of seeing several kids holding real power tools, the kind that can break through wood, and from what I could tell every one of those kids was having an amazing time.

I walked into Home Depot on Harrodsburg Road at 10am on Saturday. As a team member for Amachi, I was hoping to catch a few photographs of the mentors and mentees as they worked together on their projects.  The project was to build cornhole boards.  Quite honestly, in my mind the project seemed a bit advanced for some of our younger kids.  But I had underestimated Home Depot. And quite honestly I had underestimated our mentors and their kids!  

Home Depot had laid out for us six different sets of cornhole board pieces.  These pieces were so well-made, well-organized, and well-presented that I imagined they had ordered some kits.  Later in the morning one of their staff informed me that an employee of Home Depot had put in sixteen hours of work diligently cutting every pre-fabricated piece for our project.  Sixteen hours of time just to provide an opportunity for our kids? I was moved.  Whoever that staff member is for Home Depot, they need to be a mentor with that kind of passion! We, after all, only require one hour per week!  Once our mentor matches started working together to build their boards, the staff of Home Depot watched the project take place with joy and excitement.  I was really touched by the effort that these wonderful workers put in this project for our mentors and kids.  It wasn’t just pieces of wood that were provided by their business, there was love and care provided as well.

For three hours I watched several of our mentor matches work together to build some really cool looking cornhole boards.  They picked out some wild colors too.  University of Kentucky blue and white seemed to be the dominant theme, which is no big surprise given the excitement of March Madness!  As a new staff member, this was the first time I have had the opportunity to see our mentors work with their mentees.   I saw power in the relationship between those mentor matches for those three hours.  The kids didn’t just watch their mentors build something.  The result of the project was a cool looking cornhole board.  But there was another result as well.  While wood, nails, and paint were merging together to form a great finished project, a relationship was being built that seemed of much greater value.  Forgive me for sounding a little too Tim Allen (any Home Improvement fans out there?), but when boys and men get together and build something, I see something stronger being built than what can be done with tools and wood.  I see strength and value being built in affirmation.  I see the confidence of a boy growing as he accomplishes a task with someone that he looks up to.  I see a man proudly transferring knowledge to a child of great worth.  The power is in more than the tools.  I believe what our mentors and mentees are truly building together is something very strong.

- Brent Burgess, Amachi Mentor Recruiter