Fourth Avenue Junior High students complete hands-on conex box office project

Fourth Avenue Junior High students in Yuma finished their first construction project by turning a conex box, a storage container, into an office space with help from Pilkington Construction. The year-round project gave students hands-on experience with the basics of jobsite work, including electrical installation, windows and walls.

The project mattered beyond the finished office on campus. David Cullison said the goal was to show students that construction could become a real career path later in life, especially when they get early exposure to the trade. That kind of experience can point students toward apprenticeships, trade programs and entry-level work in a field that still needs skilled labor in Yuma County.

Fourth Avenue Junior High is a sixth-through-eighth-grade campus in Yuma School District One with about 450 students. Principal Jose Cazares says the school emphasizes academics, character, responsibility and respect, and the conex box project fit that mission by giving students a visible, practical result they could point to on campus.

Pilkington Construction brought local experience to the effort. The company says it has operated in Yuma since 1985 and works in commercial, industrial, federal and institutional construction. Its local project list includes Yuma International Airport, Arizona Western College, the Yuma County Courthouse and Yuma Catholic High School, a footprint that made the school partnership a natural fit.

The company also points to Yuma’s rapid growth in the 2000s, when it says the city was the third fastest-growing in the nation. That history helps explain why a local contractor would see value in introducing young students to the trade now, before future job openings become harder to fill.

School staff are already looking ahead to similar projects next school year, suggesting this was more than a one-time class assignment. For Fourth Avenue Junior High, the office project became both a lesson in teamwork and a small but concrete step toward building Yuma’s future construction workforce.