JMS Woods Lab Receives Kreg Tool Equipment

As part of the Johnston Community School Foundation grant program, more than 200 Johnston Middle School students now have additional state-of-the-art equipment in the Woods lab.

On Wednesday, October 26, representatives from Kreg Tool (Huxley, IA) donated a new Kreg router table triton router to JMS teachers Damon Staker and Joe Huebbe. Staker and Huebbe wrote a grant requesting the new piece of wood shop equipment and through the Kreg Cares Foundation, the grant was fulfilled.

“We love getting out in the schools and seeing students learn new skills using our equipment,” said Shane Rourke, Kreg Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “Kreg Tool is a strong supporter of students receiving education in skilled trades and we were pleased to make this donation.”

With 215 students in the Woods 1 course, a single router table – and the time it took to change router bits and the table set up – wasn’t efficient. Students use the router for keyhole slots on picture frames, the backs of shelves, decorative edges, and profile shapes, and frequently lost production time as they waited for one another.

The addition of a second Kreg router table eliminates the bottleneck that had been occurring during production. It also offers students flexibility to expand on projects that use the router for other tasks, such as cutting specialized joints.

“We appreciate the second router table and are looking forward to the added capacity it will bring to Woods 1 and our Technology Student Association club,” said Staker. “Any time our students can be working with industry-quality tools, we consider that a win.”