Members of the Tri-Atelier fraternity at SUNY Delhi spent nine hours Saturday, April 27, building a pavilion at Sheldon Park in the village of Delhi.
Vice President-elect Thomas Horan, who is also the community service representative for the fraternity said Ann-Lis Glenn, coordinator of the O’Connor Center for Community Engagement and Veteran Student Support at SUNY Delhi, came to the fraternity with the project last fall. Horan said the cement footings weren’t correct for the pavilion kit they were going to build, so the project got postponed until the spring semester.
“We were honored to have the town come to us to do it,” Horan said.
Matthew Furst said the pavilion came in a kit similar to furniture from IKEA and everything was labeled and easy to assemble. “Sometimes you get kits with instructions that are vague,” he said. “This went together seamlessly.”
Reece Sibley, secretary of the fraternity, said it was like a giant Lego set.
There were between 10 and 15 members who worked on the pavilion, Horan said. Members split into teams to construct different parts of the pavilion, Sibley said. For example, Sibley said in the morning he worked on the posts, and in the afternoon worked on piecing together the metal roof.
The Tri-Atelier fraternity is the buildings trades fraternity at the college, Furst said. Members are majoring in construction management, electrical, mechatronics, HVAC, plumbing, welding and other construction studies. “We can do it all,” he said.
All three said they felt relief after the pavilion was completed. “It had been on our agenda since the fall and there had been a lot of back and forth about when we were doing it or if we were going to be able to do it, so finally seeing the finished product and hopefully getting to see people use it, that’s going to feel pretty good,” Horan said. “It was also a fun thing to get to do. There are a decent amount of us guys graduating.”
Furst and Sibley agreed. “I was definitely proud of the work we did,” Sibley said. “I always love doing stuff for the town. Serving the community is what it’s all about.”
Members of the fraternity are always looking for projects to do in the area, Horan said. In the past, the brothers have built the raised beds for the community garden at Sheldon Park, the base for the Shire Pub’s float that is featured in the holiday and St. Patrick’s Day parades, sets for the veterinary science students for their haunted house, built a fence and helped out at the Delhi Campus Child Care Center and worked at Strickland Hollow Farm. The fraternity plans to build a shed on campus for other fraternities and sororities to use for storage.
“If people come to us with opportunities and things they need help with, we’re always all ears,” Horan said. “We try our best to see what we can do for somebody.”