Canal Winchester Schools: Canal Creations heads toward self-sufficiency while staying busy

Students at the Canal Creations print production studio at Canal Winchester High School, who are aiming to one day produce all the merchandise in the high school's Canal Corner school store in-house, have been busy the last few months on a variety of projects.

The best-selling items at the Canal Corner have been the Canal Creations-produced T-shirts, instructor Aimee Byers said, but the students have also done a lot more throughout the year. They designed and created dozens of tumblers for bus drivers as part of Bus Driver Appreciation Day in March, made 27 yard signs celebrating the 2022 graduating class and made zip-up hoodies for the district’s maintenance department.

“We learned how to stamp (a zipper) on a zipped sweatshirt,” Byers said. “It doesn’t sound like anything, but it’s different. You have to watch that you don’t get burned on the zipper because it comes off super hot.”

The Canal Creations print production studio is a part of the school's work-based learning program. Students in his program take a course online that earns them an academic credit, Byers said, and can earn one-to -three elective work credits for having a job in the community.

Byers said students usually come into the production studio during study halls, where they learn and work on the embroidery machines, printers and other equipment in the studio. Byers said next year she hopes to integrate the work-based learning curriculum into a class period.

Banners for seniors on sports teams, which feature portraits of team members, have also kept the work-based learning program busy throughout the year, Byers said.

The print production lab, which was started in the fall, has made about 70 senior athlete banners throughout the year, she said. About 30 banners have been produced for spring teams alone, including banners for seniors on the boys and girls track teams and baseball and softball teams.

Byers has been busy getting the production studio up to speed this year, overseeing the installation of large-format printers, presses, embroidery machines and other equipment so students can learn how to use them. The goal is to produce nearly all the merchandise for Canal Corner in-house.

They haven’t reached that goal yet, Byers said, but the students have come a long way since earlier in the year, and have worked on some large projects, such as making shirts for the Spread the Word: Inclusion Matters campaign at CWHS in March to promote diversity and inclusion.

“It used to be every step, I had to oversee it,” she said. “With the Inclusion Matters campaign, we made over 100 shirts, and I would say the kids did those from start to finish.

“They weeded the vinyl. They pressed the shirts, they sold the shirts, with very little help from me.”

Senior Zade Fusselman, who is an outfielder and pitcher on the baseball team, said he’s enjoyed the class.

“Miss Byers is awesome and I get to have fun with my friends and meet new people, and do cool things like this,” he said.

Senior Montana Steward said she started with the program this year. She said she already had some familiarity working with vinyl but was otherwise starting from scratch.

“I know how vinyl and weeding and stuff works, but I never actually got to work with this stuff until this year,” she said.

Steward said her favorite thing to do in the shop is weeding, which is the process of removing excess material around a vinyl design.

Senior Ethan McGlone also enrolled in the work-based learning program this year.

"I didn't know anything about it when I started," he said. "Now I can do it all."

Byers said she’s hoping to get more sophomores and juniors into the program next year. This year's group has three juniors and no sophomores. She’s also excited to see the program move to more in-person instruction, as some of the programming was online due to distance learning.

This will help lead the program toward its goal of self-sufficiency, she said.

“I’m really excited to see the growth in the fall,” Byers said.

sborgna@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekSteve

This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Canal Winchester Schools: Canal Creations heads toward self-sufficiency while staying busy