WOODSTOCK — Woodstock Academy’s Construction class built six feral cat shelters for Our Companions, a local volunteer animal rescue organization in Ashford.

Our Companions works with local farmers and landowners to control the feral cat over-population and provides the animals with a warm, safe place to sleep during the winter. Eleven Academy construction students built six shelters.

“Throughout the first semester the students learned many new skills and practiced designing and building different objects for the school, their homes, friends, or families,” said Vocational Technology teacher Keith Landin. “It was very gratifying to give my students a real-world design problem and just stand back and watch as they ran with it.”

The students had one week to reserve engineer a sample cat shelter that Our Companions loaned the class. Each student drew up a set of plans before breaking up into teams of two and building. “Five of the six shelters are already out in circulation in our managed feral colonies,” said Program Manager Caroline Gaetano. “We posted a picture on our Facebook page and have had many people contact us looking for a copy of their plans so they can build their own. The students did an amazing job on the project, their efforts are having a far-reaching impact!” 

The project was a great practice of reverse engineering, getting maximum yield from one sheet of plywood and more challenges.

“When Woodstock Academy’s Construction class, under the direction of Keith Landin, offered to build the feral cat shelters as a class project, we were delighted,” said Our Companions Chief Executive Officer, Susan Linker. “The shelters were expertly built and it is our pleasure to provide them to those people within the community who are doing the compassionate work of sterilizing, vaccinating, and providing daily care for feral cats.”