Students move a truss for the new Monty Tech veterinary clinic.
Fitchburg, MA – In September, the Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School’s new veterinary clinic opened to the public, providing medical care to pets from local low-income families in the Fitchburg area.
Veterinary science students will be simultaneously learning important career skills while giving back to their community. Likewise, the students who built the facility also benefited from hands-on learning in the construction of a building that will serve future students for decades to come.
Monty Tech exterior
Two hundred students, under the supervision of 20 instructors across eight different trades, built the clinic over the course of two school years. Everything from framing, roofing, electrical, HVAC, and plumbing was both an opportunity to learn and a gift to the school and community.
The project took longer than it typically would to construct because learning and instruction time was built into the schedule and the work only took place during school hours. Instructors made sure students were working at a professional level in completing their work.
Monty Tech lobby
The architect, Worcester-based firm Lamoureux Pagano Associates | Architects, took into consideration that students would be building the facility and took care to design not only a functional building for the veterinary program, but a useful teaching tool for students. As an example, the new building uses more than one type of heating system, which gave students in the HVAC program exposure to, and hands-on experience with, multiple system types.
