By: Local Conservation Corps Staff

Maria Pineda, a 24-year-old corpsmember enrolled in our Local Conservation Corps’ (LCC) YouthBuild Program, received a reconstructed and refinished table from her construction class.

As a YouthBuild participant, Maria has dedicated two hours daily to the training program at the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) – an educational class component that trains youth in all phases of building construction, woodworking, safety procedures, and usage of hand and power tools. Her instructor, Mr. Brian Nelson from Fresno Adult School, bought a table at a yard sale for $3.00 and used it as a project for the students. Maria and her fellow corpsmember worked on reconstructing and refinishing the table for three weeks (30 hours total).

They started scraping and heavy sanding the table with 60-grip sandpaper to smooth out the rough areas then removed the paint using a chemical stripper and a heat gun. They continued to medium sand the table with 120-grip sandpaper and then filled the cracks and heavy dents with wood filler; they applied three coats of walnut stain with a light sanding in between coats before applying three coats of polyurethane. As a final touch, they tightened up all of the table hardware, which included nuts and bolts.

Since Maria was the one who put the most work into the project, she earned the table, and will be using it as her dining table at home.