To find self-motivation, to foresee a career and, most importantly, to be happy — this is what 60-year-old Sweetwater High School welding teacher Bill Fajardo has been teaching his students for eighteen years.
“You know it’s like raising your child, you get them from when they’re being rambunctious and wild, to where they’re doing something and getting better and better at something and they develop their pride and become a person that is recognized for their hard work,” Fajardo said.
Before becoming a teacher, Fajardo was in the Navy for 23 years and served as an instructor in the military for two years in Saudi Arabia. While he was an instructor, he said someone encouraged him to get his teaching credential, and the profession essentially chose him.
Over the course of his career Fajardo has taught fire science, engineering and machine tool technology. About eight years ago, he helped make a partnership with A Reason to Survive possible, to provide his students with hands-on internship opportunities where they work on projects that benefit National City.
ARTS is a creative youth development organization that has the mission of igniting the power of creativity in youth, inspiring them to overcome obstacles and equipping them with the skills needed to become compassionate catalysts for positive change, according to their website.
“I’m a technical education instructor. One of our collateral duties is to go and find internships for these students.” Fajardo said. “It was just the perfect fit for my students and for them, because my students would go to them already skilled and they would provide my students with artists and engineers to make projects for the community.”
About 30 of Fajardo’s students intern with ARTS annually, according to ARTS Executive Director James Halliday. He said that Fajardo’s students tapping into their creativity through this partnership helps them gain social capital by working with ARTS partners throughout the city and local industry leaders, while also giving them projects they can add to their resume.
Fajardo’s students have made bike racks to go in front of schools, solar light systems to brighten dark parking lots and signs for ARTS. By working on these projects, he said his students often discover their own capabilities.
“Some of these kids didn’t know they were talented until they went to ARTS and found out they were talented… they can go there and express their color scheme, their mechanical skills and expand their horizons in art,” Fajardo said.
He added that ARTS helps kids escape their daily routine and express themselves, all while better preparing them for their future careers.
