Wasilla JROTC cadets get lessons in teamwork, leadership, and accomplishment while installing new flooring

In the Air Force JROTC classroom at Wasilla High School (WHS) hangs a banner that lists the goals, which include: Instill Values of Citizenship, Service to the United States, Personal Responsibility, and Sense of Accomplishment.

Last week, cadets in the Air Force JROTC program at were busy working towards those goals as they removed old carpeting, measured and hammered as they installed new flooring into their spaces as part of a collaboration with Home Depot to upgrade and remake spaces in the building.

“Home Depot has been instrumental in doing grant funding for work throughout the community, and here they are working with our JROTC, providing the materials and teaching them how to do. Then the students actually install it. The kids are actually rebuilding their own space,” explains Laura Anderson, Librarian and Media Specialist for WHS.

“They’ve all been wanting to do this, that’s what gets me,” says Anderson. She says aside from the labor, students were involved in preparing the portfolio of what materials would be needed and how much, what the final project would look like, tapping into technical writing.

“It’s phenomenal.”

Under the watchful eye of CMS Bret Copple, 70 cadets have been hard at work before, during, and after school to get the flooring completed. “The all pitch in in some way, shape, or another,” he says. He noted that some students have a slight advantage as they are already taking construction courses and are able to move through the project more easily. “We use them to teach the other students, and we get them started, and they run the roads.”

An integral part of the military is being able to pitch in and be a part of the team, even when skills needed to complete the task may be outside the assigned jobs, a lesson the students are practicing in spades. “For the cadets planning on going into the military, it’s an important lesson and good training.”

This is not the first project the cadets have done to make over their spaces. CMS Copple says they previously repainted the office, filled in and repainted holes in walls from normal wear and tear, and built new holders for the JROTC guide-ons. “It started with a simple, ‘hey, let’s paint and make this place look better.’ They just keep taking it one step further.”

And the students’ desire to change and makeover isn’t limited to flooring and painting, but the hard task of getting a Keurig so they can make hot chocolate or coffee was also recently conquered. “They have a fund they raise money for JROTC, and that’s what they wanted. Now they bring their beverages in.” And most military will say that is an important element to being in the armed forces-access to coffee.

“We really just encourage innovation and ideas, when they’re not ridiculous. We try to allow them to innovate and to come up with ideas on how to do things better.”

Other important lessons the cadets are taking away from installing the new floors is leadership, delegating, and feeling a sense of accomplishment.

“It’s great to see that,” says CMS Copple. “They’ve started to really take more and more pride in everything,”