The summer labor of a group of Flint Southwestern students, combined with mentorship from a GM retiree from the General Motors Student Corps (GMSC) program and the team at Factory Two has resulted in the creation of sturdy, raised garden beds that will help future Flint students learn about growing crops and horticulture.
The GMSC program, launched in 2013, pairs paid interns from participating schools with GM retirees to work on various community projects for seven weeks over the summer. Eight Southwestern students participated in 2025: Saydah Al-Samet, Taeveoanna Cheeks, Dejuane Carroll, Jamar Felton, Anthony Kyles, Darion McNichols, Jordan Nichols, and Precious Whitaker. The projects are all aimed at teaching students about professional and skill development, serving the community, and working as part of a team.
The students worked with Michael Weber, who retired from GM in 2016 after working for the company for 39 years, starting at the Buick Motor Division and eventually retiring out of the GM Tech Center. Since retiring, he’s volunteered heavily in the community, through GM Student Corps, the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) and also teaching various STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-related curricula to local elementary school students. He’s also been heavily involved with local and state chapters of the Boy Scouts of America, an organization that influenced his desire to give back.
“I enjoy being busy, but there’s also a motto from Lord Baden-Powell, the Boy Scouts founder, and he says, ‘Make the world a better place than you found it,’” Weber said. “I guess I’ve tried to live that motto my entire life. There’s so much need, and I can’t fill all the needs, but I’ve got passion and where I’ve got an interest or a skill and an ability to contribute, I’m willing to jump in where I can.”
During the summer, in addition to building the large planters, students cleaned up a small pond, entrance, courtyard, and tennis court areas around Southwestern by removing algae, pulling weeds, laying mulch, and planting new plants. They purchased and distributed water and hygiene bags for local churches and shelters and also refurbished a wheelchair ramp at a shelter.
The took field trips to various GM facilities and to the University of Detroit Mercy and completed a curriculum that included financial literacy, resume and over letter writing, mock interviews, and more.
“It was an action-packed summer,” Weber said.
Factory Two as a Community Resource
The four raised beds were constructed for Shelly Roberts, a science teacher at Flint Southwestern.
“She (Roberts) is quite an ecologist,” Weber said. “She has multiple fish tanks in her classroom, she has flowers she grows outside. She’d wanted to get these planters built earlier and it didn’t happen, so she sent me an email early in the summer to see if I’d be willing to have the students build them, and I thought, now there’s a neat project to work with.”
The project was extensive, though. The beds are formidable – they’re made of heavy, pressure-treated lumber and they’re 4-foot by 8-foot and weigh about 400 pounds each. That’s not an easy project for experienced DIY builders, let alone a group of high school students with very limited experience, to complete in a limited amount of time. That’s where Factory Two came in.
The community makerspace was the perfect environment for students to learn and build the project in a supportive environment, and they even got to learn from a Flint Community Schools graduate while they worked there.
Zackir Metcalf, the volunteer coordinator at Factory Two, is a Flint Northwestern graduate. He and the team at Factory Two were able to pre-drill some of the holes required and make some of the more time-consuming cuts to set up the students for success as they built.
“One thing was, they would’ve had to drill like 1,000 holes,” Metcalf said. “That’s a little bit tedious, so I didn’t want them to get burned out. So we built a jig, cut everything to size, and then just kept putting it on the CNC router and let it drill our holes for us.”
Starting out, most of the students were unfamiliar with any woodworking tools or techniques, but their appetite for learning impressed Metcalf.
“Actually, on day one, everybody had zero experience with any type of woodworking, and some of them, it was their first time even touching a drill,” he said. “The most fun part was going from literally having to teach someone how to use a drill to, by the middle of it, it started to be a competition for them and they started cranking it out.”
Weber was also impressed by the enthusiasm students had for the project as they learned that industrial arts are a lot of fun.
“They responded extremely well and were fast learners,” he said. “They received a little bit of instruction, and then the rest comes from trial and error. It was a huge learning experience, and they thoroughly enjoyed it and did a super job.”
Metcalf was excited that the students were able to get this exposure to woodworking and DIY projects at a young age, noting that he was a junior in college before he’d been able to use and work with some of the equipment they used at Factory Two.
“I grew up poor with a single mom and three little sisters, so I kind of had to figure everything out on my own,” he said. “We couldn’t afford to go get a $500 table. But I can build a $50 one, you know?”
His experimenting as a kid eventually led to him trying to build bigger projects, like entertainment center cabinets and bed frames that he’d use in college. Eventually, he got good enough at it that his friends started asking him to help build stuff. He’s found a home for his creativity in the environment at Factory Two.
“The people and connections you make here are amazing,” Metcalf said. “I get to see people doing some crazy stuff and amazing things in whatever respective creative project they’re working on. And then on the other end, we get people who have these crazy ideas but don’t know how to make them yet so they come here and are able to ask for help.”
Metcalf said that getting to introduce Southwestern students to that space was the best part of the project for him.
“It’s heartwarming to see them, now that they’ve been in the space, eager and interested in woodworking and projects like this, that’s dope,” Metcalf said. “These are real life skills they’re learning, whether you go to college or whatever you do. You can go renovate homes or get into other trades.”
Metcalf was also able to give the students some keepsakes. They used scrap wood and other materials to make “trophies” with their names on them. The students showed their appreciation by dropping off a jar of candy for him a couple of weeks later.
“It was like 7:30 or 8, and they just jumped out of this van and gave me a card and a whole mason jar full of candy,” he said. “That almost made me tear up.”
A Legacy for Future Students
The students weren’t just responsible for building the raised beds – they also had to help with transporting them back to Southwestern, which was no easy task. But now that they’re there, planning is underway for how they will be used by Roberts’ students.
“The plans for the raised beds involve classwork as well as an afterschool Environmental Science group that will continue working toward Flint Southwestern Classical Academy’s designation as a Michigan Green School,” Roberts said. “I want the students to have ownership of the program.”
Roberts said that the group currently has working relationships with the Flint River Watershed Coalition, For-Mar Nature Preserve, Genesee County Conservation District, Tau Gardens, and Aquatic Innovations. She’s also hoping to work with Edible Flint and Applewood in the future. Students in her classes have previously grown plants in pots in the school’s courtyard.
“Most of the classes took plants home last spring and grew them during the summer,” she said. “Ornamentals were given to staff members to have in their classroom or at home. Some future ideas involve a focus on seasons and planting bulbs to enjoy in the spring.”
For Weber, it is simply gratifying and moving to see how much the eight students accomplished in one summer, and how much their individual skills evolved as a result of the experiences.
“I get emotional,” he said, noting that at the end of the program, students are evaluated based on certain criteria and they also get to evaluate themselves. “Then we sit down and talk about it. And in a 10 or 15 minute conversation with each student at the end, it’s fun to see the smiles on their faces and how proud they are of their work. It’s pretty cool.”
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