They didn’t have long to do it, but four students from South Meadow School’s Expanding Horizon Program made a film about a Hancock manufacturer, competing in a statewide competition. They earned an honorable mention for their efforts.
Though they only had four weeks in a competition that had been open for months, Liam McCall, Max Heck, Lorien Tyne and Ainsley King decided to shoot for the moon with their film about Sarah’s Hat Boxes, which has manufacturing facilities in Hancock and a store in downtown Peterborough.
They admit they didn’t know much of anything about manufacturing before they got started, but they weren’t about to let that stop them. They began by researching the beginnings of the company and its founders Debbie and Peter Mills, then they toured the facilities and interviewed the Sarah’s Hat Boxes team.
“The biggest thing I was surprised by was how few people there were and how much they produce,” Tyne said, noting the team includes a handful of employees plus the Mills family. “It changed what I thought about a factory.”
Heck said he learned that making things is a process. “There’s a specific start and a specific end. You have to do things in order,” he said.
The students are just a handful of the 200 or so who are in the Expanding Horizon Program, which gives them an opportunity for hands-on learning, peer mentorship and experience working as a team. As the teacher for the program, Michele Brezovec explained, “[It’s] a lot of tech, and they take charge of their learning.”
About half of the students who attend SMS are in the program. They have to apply, write a 750-word essay about why they want to join, and agree to make up any work they miss when they leave class for it. They also commit to time after school for things like the school newspaper, Robotics and other competitions.
Making the film was a good experience, Tyne said, especially because she was able to see what it’s really like at a manufacturing site.
“It makes me realize how much is in Peterborough that I don’t know about, that I don’t think about,” she said.
A member of the N.H. Manufacturing Extension Partnership Advisory Council, Dave DeWitt, of Dublin, alerted the students to the film competition, and was thrilled they went ahead and did it. For someone who’s been in manufacturing his whole life and is passionate about introducing youth to careers in manufacturing, the opportunity seemed like a no-brainer.
“[In the film,] I heard kids use terms like thousandths of an inch,” DeWitt said. “They were using manufacturing terms!”
DeWitt grew up with a father who ran a big factory in Troy, New York, and then went on to build his own manufacturing company. DeWitt, who became an engineer, followed in his father’s footsteps, working for what was then called Millipore, including its Jaffrey plant. After working his way up the ladder, DeWitt branched out on his own, opening Time Frame Inc. in Peterborough in 1990; he sold it in 2012.
“Manufacturing for me was a family thing,” DeWitt said, and that’s what he hopes to impart to a new generation. “I think it’s important that parents and students see manufacturing as a good career choice. … We have a lot of large manufacturing companies around.”
The students’ film can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=b91OzLrqXD8.