News

Thursday, September 23, 2010

San Marcos stage crew service learning project benefits local church

In the first week of school the San Marcos High School Stagecrafts Class took on a service learning opportunity to give back to the community. A class of 15 students worked together to learn how to rebuild and restore the stage lighting for Santa Barbara Community Church. Under the direction of veteran teacher David Holmes the Stagecraft Class met at the church to unplug and take down 20 ellipsoidal lighting fixtures. Each light was taken completely apart, cleaned and refurbished as new. For a minimal cost to the church for new lamps, the entire class of stage technicians learned how to rebuild Altman Ellipsoidal spot lights that have a notorious record for a time-consuming rebuild process. Most companies have abandoned these fixtures for newer technology.

“Lighting like this takes expertise that we just don't have, so it was a real gift to have that expertise and labor donated by the students of San Marcos” stated Mike Willbanks, a pastor at the church. “I was so impressed at how David Holmes was able to provide these students an opportunity for hands on learning that also served as a blessing to the Santa Barbara community, and to our church family in particular.“

Senior Tony Jaconnette helped rebuild 20 instruments and also re-patched and re-configured the church's light board and dimmer system to simplify and clean-up the lighting control. All twenty restored lights were re-hung and focused and ten other instruments owned by the church were re-hung and focused to light the stage.