A four-week summer program called Handyman Academy seeks to help youth ages 12-17 gain valuable skills – like painting, building furniture and car maintenance.
It also provides mentorship and character-building for young people.
Three Black men — Daniel McHenry, Aj Batchelor, and Zell Gibson, are behind it. All of them are handymen who work in Milwaukee.
The program grew out of their desire to pass on what they’ve learned to younger generations.
"I came up with the idea of having a class, a session, to be able to teach teenagers how to do basic things I think that all men should know how to do, such as change tires, build things, mount TVs, small home repairs and just building character; working with one another," says McHenry, the academy's director.
Handyman Academy kicked off its third season at the Sherman Phoenix on June 15.
The young people I talked to – like 12-year-olds Jakhari Davis and Aden Myrick – already had an interest in handy activities and were looking forward to the program.
"My cousin dad, he used to take me to go and fix on houses and stuff, like the wires in the wall, and he used to let me pump the air in his tires," Davis said.
Myrick said, "I was talking to my mom about doing engineering and she said it was this program called Handyman, and I said I wanted to join."
Week by week, students learned different skills.
On day one, director McHenry started with basic tool safety and identification. He held up several tools and asked if students could identify them.
Their first job was to assemble an ottoman.
McHenry selected a handful of students at a time and they got to work.
By the third week, they learned to mount TVs.
"A TV wall mount is gonna come with TV screws, and it’s gonna come with the wall screws. And you have to be able to identify which is which, okay?" McHenry said.
They were shown how to use the power drill, and practiced drilling screws into wall studs.
On July 7, the final day of Handyman Academy, students graduated. They received a certificate of completion and were gifted their own tool kits.
The program mostly enrolled boys and young men; but 14-year-old Leiyah Brooks McHenry — the director’s daughter — also graduated.
"It feel good," she said. "I been doing it for almost three years now, and I actually feel like it's a good thing to experience. And when you get older in life, you will know how to handle things and build things."
While presenting their certificates, Daniel McHenry personalized his thanks to students for their individual strengths.
"I think each student needs to feel that," he said. "They need to feel important, they need to feel special. That was my first time ever doing that in our seasons, but I felt the need to do it because some people, they kinda stay to themselves, and they don’t really engage much with the program, but I wanted to highlight those special moments that they had here and I want them to remember those special moments."
McHenry says the Handyman Academy team is already thinking about what the next season looks like.
He also says there could be adult classes at some point. I'll be on the lookout for those.
