Shop class makes a wheel difference

Ask Jeff Copeland, and he'll tell you that there are way too many news stories about car repair shops that cheat their customers. "It puts a black eye on our industry," said Copeland, a master auto technician who also teaches at Dakota County Technical College (DCTC).

So he set about to show that "there are people coming into our industry that are really concerned about the customer and want to do good things in the community."

Last spring, he won a $5,000 grant to design a class aimed at promoting volunteerism among his auto mechanic students. Copeland and a co-instructor are piloting the course this fall as part of a larger effort by DCTC instructors to integrate service learning into a variety of classrooms.

Students in the class form groups and brainstorm a project that combines car smarts with community service, then raise money to make it happen.

For students like Brandon Lewanski, coming up with an idea was a no-brainer. Lewanski, 20, thought of his friend Steve Anderson, a fellow Hastings High School graduate who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident last year. Anderson has a driver's license, but he has to depend on relatives and friends for rides because he doesn't have a vehicle adapted to be driven without foot pedals.

Lewanski and teammates Garren Carter and Jeremy Blackford decided to find a van and fix it up for Anderson. Their first snag: finding the vehicle.

"For the first week, we were looking high and low, searching for a van," Lewanski said. Then they got lucky. A Lakeville man called Copeland and asked whether he could donate a Ford Econoline equipped with a wheelchair lift that his disabled son had used.

Now the students are using their training to diagnose the van's problems -- it may need a new engine -- and calling local auto parts stores to ask for donations. For liability reasons, they won't be able to adapt the van for a handicapped driver themselves, but Anderson said he knows of a program that can probably line him up with a company that can do it.

Anderson said he's excited about the van, which would enable him to drive himself to class at Inver Hills Community College, as well as Minnesota Wild games. Lewanski is giving him updates on the project, but not too many, so the van will be "something of a surprise when I see it," he said.

Another group is offering a clinic where drivers can have their vehicle lights replaced for free, and a third is designing a basic auto repair seminar.

Bryan Winn's group found a single mother with two children, a waitressing job and a 1986 Toyota Corolla with a host of problems, including a "rather large" hole in the exhaust.

"It sounded like a race car, basically," he said. The students asked local businesses to donate about $500 in parts. They have already fixed the car's struts and exhaust and done an alignment, and were planning last week to replace its tires and timing belt. All told, they estimate the labor they'll put in could run as much as $2,000 at a shop.

Students said the class opened their eyes to the ways they could use their skills to help. And the intimidating part of the class -- calling businesses to ask for donations -- turned out to be much easier than they expected. "They try to outdo one another," Winn said. "They're really eager to donate stuff."

That's exactly the kind of lesson Copeland hopes to get across.

"I can teach the students how to fix cars, because that's my job," he said. "But if I can teach them how to use their gifts to help somebody else, then I'm really giving them something more."

Sarah Lemagie • 612-673-7557

Sarah Lemagie • slemagie@startribune.com