In mid-2025, IMPACT asked Zach Owen and Tim Demster—instructors of shop and environmental technology at Andover Central High School—if they would be interested in engaging their students in the construction of an Adirondack style lean-to shelter overlooking the beaver pond on Trail 4 in Phillips Creek State Forest.

The answer was an immediate yes. Within weeks Zach, Tim, and IMPACT members were scouring the woods looking for—and finding— the perfect spot.

During the fall and winter of 2025/2026 ten shop students cut logs to the sizes required by the shelter design and learned how to assemble the shelter in the shop itself.

When spring arrived, the students and their instructors dismantled the structure and prepared for moving the logs to the building site, which had been prepared in advance by the Allegany County Foresters of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

Then, on May 27-29, 2026, Andover students and their instructors, IMPACT members, and various volunteers moved the shelter logs to the site and erected the shelter once again, as they had learned to do in their shop classes.

Financial and in-kind contributors to this $5,000 project included the following:

• Allegany Area Community Foundation

• Eddy Lumber

• Facett Lane Lumber

• IMPACT