For the third year, The Lunz Group was a proud sponsor and participant of the Lakeland Police Department’s Summer Trades Camp.
Summer Trades Camp is a yearly summer camp hosted by the Lakeland Police Department that introduces high school students in a hands-on approach to the vocational job market and teaches them skills for a variety of industries including carpentry, electrical, plumbing, roofing, drywall, painting, architecture, and more. This year, Lakeland PD expanded the program into two weeks – one in Lakeland and one in Winter Haven, to reach more youth across Polk County.
The Lunz Group was excited to educate students about architecture, the skills needed for the industry, and how they could also become architects. The day began with Sarah Giles, Employee Success + HR Business Partner, giving an overview of The Lunz Group and steps to become an architect. As an icebreaker, we had the students use toothpicks and gumdrops to build the tallest tower that could hold fishing weights.
“This aligns with our vision to empower, embrace, and cultivate the community and the organization’s commitment to supporting young talent. When Lt. Joe Parker asked Brad Lunz, our CEO, to participate, it was an easy yes,” Sarah said when asked about our involvement in LPD’s Summer Trades Camp.
Our lessons continued with Emily Breheny, a registered architect, discussing architectural typologies; Dari Sanders and Anamaria Jovel, architectural designers, giving a presentation on floorplans; Matt Festa, BIM Manager, teaching elevations and introducing students to Building Information Modeling (BIM), and Victor Pereda, Lead Production Artist, instructing on Architectural Visualization and the history of renderings.
“I enjoyed participating in the Summer Trades program and seeing high schoolers become interested in our field. I want to see more women of color in our field, and the first step is being the support I had to others now,” Anamaria said.
Matt Festa adds that “it’s important to show the future generation there are a variety of career paths, even ones outside of universities. Trades are an essential skill and this program provides hands-on learning from local companies to students, opening the door to a potential career.”
The students could engage in additional activities like creating their own firms and sketching the floorplans of their office space, creating a card tower, and drawing the elevation, and old-school hand coloring.
Anamaria said her favorite part of the program was “seeing the students present floorplans to us. I felt like they truly enjoyed the activity and could see they were understanding and absorbing the information being taught to them.”
Investing in our community is an important value at The Lunz Group. It was a privilege to spend the day educating students in the Lakeland and Winter Haven areas about architecture and learning about their interests.
“I’m from Lakeland – I love this place! I am so grateful that my role allows me to engage with the community and to foster stewardship opportunities for our team to serve here,” said Sarah.
Thank you to Lt. Joe Parker and the Lakeland Police Department for putting together this amazing program. We cannot wait for next summer!
For more information about Lakeland PD’s Summer Trades Camp, visit https://www.lakelandgov.net/departments/lakeland-police-department/join-our-team/trades-summer-academy/.
