When The LIFT opened in August 2021, one of the goals was to have an automotive shop and restaurant in house that could serve the general public, giving students real-world experience and providing the people of Abilene with a reason to check out the crown jewel of the November 2018 bond election.
If that was the goal, consider The LIFT open for business.
Earlier this spring, the automotive shop, which has been servicing automobiles since The LIFT opened, went public with an online registration system and point-of-sale systems, giving students real-world experience at school. In March, the Sky Café began serving a lunch menu for the public with several different types of salad, a sandwich, an entrée, and desserts.
“It’s been great to see students in both of these areas get real-world experience,” said Jay Ashby, the Director of The LIFT. “But it also lets the public see how capable and skilled our students are in culinary and automotive areas. One group is preparing their lunch and serving them, and another is doing an oil change or performing another service on a car.”
In the automotive shop, students do anything from essential maintenance (oil change, brake repair, and alignment) to more detailed work, including air conditioning and electronic system checks.
The Abilene Automotive Education Alliance helped provide The LIFT with some vital state-of-the-art equipment, technical assistance, and expertise. Not only that, but the alliance also offered a repair order system so the students could order equipment and have a point-of-sale system in-house.
“We also have a program through Ford Motor Company where they’re able to get some certifications here, and if they walk into Arrow Ford with those certifications, they’ll be able to make more money than somebody walking in off the street,” said auto shop teacher Matt Parker. “The work aspect of this is so good for our students. They’re getting real-world experience in this setting, and that will only help them down the road.”
Will Kirby, who also teaches auto shop, said the new equipment gives the students a leg up on the outside competition.
“At Abilene High, we just had a big empty building filled with cars,” he said. “Now we’ve got lifts and an alignment lift and rack, alignment machine, and so many other things to give these kids a head start. We’re giving them a real-world experience at school and a new way to look at the class since it’s more like a real job.”
In the culinary arts area, students are also learning with state-of-the-art equipment, including ovens that can basically cook food without help from humans. They’re called Combi ovens, and The LIFT has four for student use. The ovens can steam, bake, dehydrate, proof, grill, sear, and air fry with the touch of a button.
The LIFT is hosting the retired teachers’ dinner in May, and the students will be using those ovens to prepare 200 pieces of chicken at once. The students will place probes in a few pieces of chicken, and the oven then sets the perfect humidity and temperature levels to bake the inside of each piece of chicken to perfection. The oven will then turn off the humidity and fry the top of the chicken so the skin is crispy.
After the meal is served, all of the dishes will be run through a commercial dish-washer, which is what the students use each day of service at The Sky Café, and with the touch of a button, each oven will steam-clean itself and the excess water and grease will drain out at the bottom, leaving the inside of the oven looking like new.
“What (culinary instructor) Jonathan West has told the students is that he’s going to teach them how to use those ovens, but they may not start their career working in a place that has those kinds of ovens, so they have to know how to cook with traditional equipment as well,” Ashby said.
That new school meets old-school approach is also used in the automotive shop.
“They might have a 1959 Chevy in there one day, and those kids have to know how to work on that as well, and that’s what Matt and Will are teaching them,” Ashby said. “Our automotive and culinary kids are both learning in state-of-the-art facilities, and they’re learning skills that they wouldn’t have had the chance to learn without The LIFT and what we have here. But it’s also important that they’re learning customer service skills and old-school techniques, which will serve them well when they get into the real world.”
