Constructs kids instruments

The Penticton Men’s Shed delivered numerous handmade marimbas to Skaha Lake Middle School on Friday afternoon, after spending roughly 242 hours building the musical instruments from scratch.

The Men's Shed movement, which originally started in Australia more than 30 years ago, has since spread around the globe.

The idea is a space for men to gather and work "shoulder to shoulder" on projects, sharing skills and knowledge, building friendships, and increasing physical, mental and emotional well-being.

The local club started in September 2022, and have only grown in numbers and project accomplishments.

A few of their projects so far include installing benches for Agur Lake Camp for people with disabilities, adding countertops to ASK Wellness Society's supportive housing building and working in collaboration with PACE, a social enterprise focussed on sustainability and employing people with barriers, to repair and replace some of the tables they use to recycle mattresses.

Their latest project kicked off at the end of summer, when the school's fine arts and band teacher, Fahlon Palm, asked if they could construct a few for her class.

Palm explained that her husband, who himself used to be the school's music teacher, had connected previously with the Men's Shed Director Steve Jasper, who had reached out after building three marimbas himself that he wanted to donate.

"I grew up playing these instruments and then that was my full time job for years, was teaching and performing on marimbas," Palm said.

"Once I got this music job, I really wanted marimbas to teach kids with, because I think that they're the perfect instrument to teach kids on."

So a connection was made and Jasper was asked if he knew where the class could acquire more. The group agreed to take on the task themselves.

"I personally built four myself, and then with the men's group, we built seven," he added.

"This has been the biggest project we've worked on with the Men's Shed. But part of the satisfaction is to build something and then give it back to the community. So the fact that we're gonna have school aged children playing on these, I think, is tremendous."

The wood, which came from Windsor Plywood, was bought by the school for the project. Palm said the local company gave them a nice discount, which really helped keep the costs down. Then all the labour hours from the group of men was donated.

Currently, the group is using a shop space out of the Penticton and District Society for Community Living (PDSCL) for their projects,

"We did a lot of construction on the weekend at that place, and lot of the tuning," Jasper said.

"When you cut the pieces of wood here, so there are different ways you have to tune it to a certain note, and to do that, you carve underneath with a band saw, and then use a regular sander, and that brings the pitch down gradually, and then you get it exactly the right pitch."

He said quite a bit of work went into the project, but in the end, it was a lot of fun.

"I would say eight people at the Men's Shed were [the core] part of it and the rest gave us a lot of encouragement," he added with a chuckle.

Palm said the kids are looking forward to the new additions to their classroom.

"They're very excited now that they can see what it is, because really, what kid doesn't want to just bang around on the instruments and make noise," she said.

"It gives kids a very accessible way to just sound good instantly, and make music together in a group, whether they've ever played an instrument or not. So it's really, really fun, and the music is so cheerful."

The Mens Shed group is looking forward to coming back in the near future to hear the kids play.

In the meantime, the group is still looking to find a dedicated workshop space.

"We got a whole bunch of tools that are in storage right now that's been donated to us, but we need a workshop to go and put it in there."

Anyone who knows about such a space or would like to donate a shop space to the Penticton Men’s Shed can email pentictonmenshed@gmail.com