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Oakville, Ontario - The Yves Landry Foundation (YLF) is pleased to be celebrating our latest school collaboration – this one with Abbey Park High School (APHS) in Oakville. Today, Abbey Park HS will be receiving the third and final car for our 2016’s Get it in Gear project. The 1963 Plymouth Fury is our third vehicle to go to a high school in Ontario. Each of the vehicles: a Ford, a GM and a Chrysler are being carefully restored by students and teachers in automotive classes at the schools. In September, YLF’s launched “Get it in Gear” project as a response to the alarming rates of skilled trade shortages, manufacturers struggling to find qualified workers and the lack of awareness by young people and their parents about the good jobs within the trades, right here in Ontario.
Corey Deschamps, Chairman of the Yves Landry Foundation, Board of Directors says, “Abbey Park High School will do a great job restoring this hot rod. The Fury was made famous in the mid-eighties when it appeared as the main character in the Steven King novel and subsequent movie “Christine”; the students and teachers will have lots of fun with this car.”
The Yves Landry Foundation, is a federal not-for-profit and for nearly 20 years has been encouraging life-long learning, promoting the trades, and supporting the manufacturing sector by building resiliency through investments in upskilling and training initiatives. “Ontario needs to address the skilled trade’s shortage,” says Karyn Brearley, Executive Director of the Yves Landry Foundation. “We can’t stress enough that if Ontario is going to maintain its foothold in the global marketplace, or even have a chance of being competitive, we need to have highly skilled workers.” “The Get It In Gear project is our attempt to do something more than just talk about it, and it was important to start with our youth. They truly are our future.”
Getting Back to the Basics
Abbey Park High School is receiving a 1963 Plymouth Fury to restore for charity. The Technology Teaching staff at Abbey Park made a really strong case as to why their school should have this car. They were committed to this project right from our first conversation. Automotive teacher Paul Uzarowski, said “there is just so much we can do with this project to enhance the experiential learning of our students; this will be fun”.
Abbey Park is consistently ranked as a top 10 Secondary School in Ontario by the Fraser Report and is part of the Halton District School Board. Abbey Park offers a variety of specialist programs such as the Gifted Cluster Program for high achieving students, two Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) programs for business studies and the Information & Communication Technology as well as an Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) for those students inclined to applied learning.
Abbey Park High School is a secondary school located in the town of Oakville, Ontario. APHS was opened at its present location in 2004 in the wake of the closure of Queen Elizabeth Park High School, which was previously operating in Bronte. The school has state of the art equipment, and has a modern and vivacious vibe. The school houses 5 trades and technology classrooms and the automotive facilities have 2 bays. The Fury will be in good hands at the APHS.
