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What began as a project to keep LKCS employees busy during a recession-related slow-down has turned into a learning experience for Area Career Center students.

LKCS, 4130 Plank Road, Peru, IL, has about 125 customers that require monthly mailings, according to vice president of operations Mark Dudek. In order to keep all that printed material organized the company designed a custom mail cart.

With business slow during the past year, Dudek said the company had decided to build the carts in-house with employee volunteers welding the carts together as a way to keep them busy.

“We’ve never had layoff in our history of 49 years and we wanted to keep that streak going,” Dudek said.

But business began to pick up slightly and after having welded forming jigs for the project, Dudek realized welding more than 100 carts would be a lot of work. As luck would have it, a former ACC welding instructor heard about the project and recommended LKCS team up with the welding students at the ACC at La Salle-Peru Township High School.

“It worked out good for us and good for them,” welding instructor Joe Villareal said.

After drawing up some basic terms, the company put in an order for 150 metal carts. The terms include LKCS paying the costs of steel and supplies, along with a per cart fee, and at the end of the project the company will purchase or help the ACC program purchase a new piece of equipment.

Using pre-cut steel and the jigs built by Dudek, the students have had their noses to the grindstone, putting together the 2-level mail carts since the beginning of the spring semester.

The students already completed 42 carts in 2 weeks, surpassing Villareal’s expectations and causing some breaks in the workflow, as they’ve had to wait for more building materials to arrive.

Read the full story at: newstrib.com

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