New Y Dream Home underway in Kamloops

Photo: Brendan Kergin

TRU instructor Bryce Coombs (left) and Chimera Construction's Tom Eggers hold the deremonial board for TRU student Austyn Heppers.

Representatives of the construction industry, TRU faculty members and university students gathered today (Aug. 12) for the ceremonial cutting of a board as the next Y Dream Home is built.

The new home, the grand prize in the next Dream Home Lottery, which supports the YMCA/YWCA, is not much more than a large hole in the ground with foundational work, but it'll soon grow, along with the skills of the students who build it.

The annual project (there now have been more than 30) is a partnership between the university's school of trades and technology and the local Canadian Home Builders Association (CHBA). The house will be built by students with hands-on help from instructors and local professionals.

"It’s really a unique partnership that’s envied throughout the province and even the country," said CHBA Central Interior president Kelly Reid at today's ceremony. "We get all kinds of inquiries about how to make it work."

The partnership, which produces a house each year for the lottery, provides an important hands-on project for the students and, as Coun. Sadie Hunter pointed out, has a purpose.

"We’ve all had projects we’re assigned in school that you just want to get through it," she said. "There’s no real point to it."

"But there’s a real purpose to each of these projects and it offers students hands-on learning."

Students will have to face real-world challenges, like weather, transportation and scheduling issues.

TRU's Dean of Trades and Technology Baldev Pooni said others have tried to do what Kamloops does with the project, but it doesn't always work out.

"This is pretty unique," he said. "Other communities have tried and many have failed doing it, but we continue to build upon the success."

This year's Y Dream Home winner was Nicole Larson.