Sahuaro’s newly-formed Tinkers Club is unlike any club we’ve had here before. Student “tinkers” learn real-life skills under the tutelage of handy-man/math teacher, “Mr. Fix-it” himself, Mr. Andy Christian. Repairing a leaky faucet, fixing a dilapidated desk. and even dry-walling techniques are put into practice while improving Sahuaro’s campus. Despite being a totally brand new establishment, the Tinkers are already becoming something like a household name in our school.

“I do a lot of home repair work, so I know a lot of things and saw a lot of things here, little things, that not quite the engineer needs to do, but we could do. And I thought it would be fun to do these projects and fix up the school as well,” Mr. Christian says about why he started the Tinkers Club.

Tinker club member and co-president Elizabeth Larson says she joined Tinkers “to learn valuable skills to help cushion my descent into adult life.”

“I’ve already learned a lot of useful things and have already started to implement them at my own house. I would definitely recommend joining Tinkers Club to anyone who wants to develop some handy independence for their future,” Club President Emily Jonaton says of the experience so far.  Freshman Josh Swinarton also agrees with Jonaton, that the Tinkers Club has been very useful and really fun.

On the grading day before Winter Break (Dec. 23), when most students are already in bed watching Netflix, the Tinkers recruited Art Club to help re-paint the upper 300 building. “It was Mr. Christian’s idea!” Art Club president Kiana Kremer says about how the “collaboration” happened. “Art club officials and a couple members gathered paint from Mr. Long’s room and took a couple hours to freshen up the paint in the upper 300 math building.”

“We (Tinkers Club) were working on Mr. Long’s sink, we were going to look at it, and I saw the Art Club there,” Mr. Christian explained how he decided to recruit Art Club’s help. The Art Club were asked to participate in this project by Mr. Christian  who had noticed the paint fading out in the 300 building. There were letters that were painted not neatly and some things were left unfinished. While Art Club was doing their thing, the Tinkers Club worked on fixing sinks in the Women’s faculty bathroom, and Ms. Lange’s and Mr. Long’s classrooms.

Larson says of the experience, “It was actually really easy to learn, but still nerve-wracking since if we screw up, we were going to be soaking wet. But it was fun and we did it.”

Mr. Christian says what he is looking for in a Tinker is: ” I would like to find who is just interested in learning how to do something and willing to want to help other people.” Right now the Tinkers Club has a long list of projects coming up including learning how to fix dry wall, appliances, and more.

Tinkers Club meets every Thursday after school  in Mr. Christian’s room 333.

(Art club is a club where artists can come together to be creative, share their work, and work on projects. They are still working on finishing the upper 300 building, and hopefully will start decorating the school with hand-painted tiles. They meet every Thursday after school from 3:15-4 in Mr. Long’s room)

Both clubs are branching out and need the hands! Please consider joining either one and help beautify the school. We would also like students and teachers to personally give out thanks to Tinkers Club for all the great things they are doing for our school so far.

Art Club Collaboration Photos: