ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – Students in the Delta Schoolcraft Intermediate School District (ISD) have broken ground on a project that will teach them trade skills and benefit the community.
“In 2008, we stopped building homes as part of the Building Trades program,” said ISD Career and Technical Education Director Trent Bellingar. “We built them for decades before that. Because of the housing market crash, we just didn’t have the cash to continually build these homes and hope that we could sell them. Now we’re at a place in the housing market where we can sell them.”
Thanks to a partnership with InvestUP, students were able to put shovels in the dirt at the future site of a new house on Willow Creek Road Tuesday morning, much to their surprise.
“We thought were just working in the classroom, but we just came here instead,” said junior Keagan Braun. “Me and my classmates just got done digging. It was exciting.”
InvestUP’s Build U.P. program helps organizations construct homes in places facing housing shortages, like Escanaba.
“They’re fronting us $200,000 to build the house,” Bellingar explained. “Then at the end when we sell it, we give it back to them with the goal of that money just revolving. We give it back, then they’re going to give it back to us to build a house in the next lot.”
Build U.P. is investing a total of $1 million to support ISD partnerships throughout the Upper Peninsula, with the goal of constructing six new homes in five communities.
“This is truly a win-win-win for our region and schools and, most importantly, our students,” said InvestUP CEO Marty Fittante. “[It is] merely a first step as we envision a sustainable solution across the U.P. through this program to address two of the most pressing challenges facing the region—housing and skilled labor shortages.”
In Escanaba, the 1,600-square-foot house is designed to be affordable to families at 150% of the county’s median income.
“We want to increase those mid-level workers in our county too, people who are working age to move here,” Bellingar said. “Right now, there’s nowhere for them to go. If we can plant the seed of, ‘We can build houses and people will buy them at an affordable rate,’ maybe others will do the same.”
Students say the project provides valuable experience that will prepare them for their future careers.
“It’s putting the skills together that we learn in class, just on a much larger scale instead of building mock houses or doing smaller versions of things,” said senior AJ Schroeder. “It just puts everything in like a real-world situation.”
Additionally, it gives them an opportunity to make a positive impact.
“It feels good to give back to the community, just help people that are in need of stuff,” senior Brandon Gardner said. “It’s just a great thing to do.”
Schroeder added, “You can put your name on that, that you helped build that house. It’s kind of a big motivation to come together with your friends and actually accomplish something pretty great.”
Students will begin construction in the spring. The ISD hopes to complete the house in May of 2026.
