She Builds

Empowering Girls to Become...

I drove a tree-lined, sun-dappled lane to Camp Whippoorwill looking for signs of the project that our family funded with donations that came in last year after John’s death. Not knowing what to expect, I stopped by a saw horse table littered with tools. Three women in flourescent green tee shirts and green hard hats circled the table. A young man poked his head out above a gabled roof of a small building by a lake. Canoes stood at attention near the water’s edge.

I approached them with the casualness of someone who knows construction sites and said, “I see women in hard hats and figure you must know where I need to go.” I explained that I was there to volunteer with a project by Allied Construction Industries called She Builds. They pointed me down a ways on the gravel road to the project headquarters.

The girls learned the necessity of PPE. Hard hat, gloves, safety glasses is the beginnings of a safe construction site.

And so the day began, a day to celebrate my husband’s legacy of giving women the advantage to build careers in construction if they so choose. Throughout the day, I would learn just how much the girls had already been exposed to, from electrical work to scaffolding, to carpentry, to bridge-building.

Walsh Kokosing, the contractors for the Brent Spence Bridge project, spent three days with the girls teaching them about the intracacies of suspension, decking, girders and truly the nuts and bolts of constructing a bridge. A few years back, John was involved in a project to teach skills to middle schoolers. He developed a plan to use pennies to build bridges, nervous as to how he would explain the project to them. When it was over, he called to tell me it had been a success. I think popsicle sticks might have been easier, but John Neyer loved a challenge.

One of many bridges built during the week.

The people I met at the approach to the campsite were employees of Messer Construction. Their expertise shone through as they gave their time to expose the girls to building a structure like the boat house. I spoke with Kim Green from Messer who remembered a couple of project managers that I knew when John and I owned Neyer Construction, Inc. I admired those women back then. They headed up large projects around Greater Cincinnati, held numbers and formulas in their heads, followed plans that make little sense to the untrained eye. They were strong and capable like we hope the young girls at camp will be as they choose a field of study.

On the last day, the girls signed their names to the boat house as a symbol of their part in the construction

Hard hats, safety glasses, gloves, clean worksite, proper use of tools. The campers worked for more than an hour on developing a skit for the ending ceremony. With my counterpart from A.C.I., we helped them integrate construction safety, time management, job performance and earning a salary. Heavy stuff for young teens but most important if they want to pursue jobs in the field.

Skit practice.

The real fun came when they showed us how to put a toilet together. Here, I jumped

in to stablize the tank while they secured it to the base. The confidence that shone through in them made the heat, the flies, and exhaustion all worth it.

Toilet building competiton happened the day before my visit.

As parents arrived to pick up the campers, one girl waited anxiously. I’d had a conversation with her earlier. She said she wants to become a carpenter. As she danced from foot to foot, looking to the gravel entry, she slumped on the curb and devolved into tears. A mother’s inclination is to jump in and fix the situation, but I didn’t. Three girls approached her, surrounded her, hugging the teary-eyed girl. She recovered and stood up, still looking to the road, but now, fueled by the strength of the other girls who comforted her. Soon her parents showed up and she jumped into the car with them.

Erica Schwegmann of A.C.I. with John and me at his retirement party, May 2024.

John’s spirit hinted at the corners of every activity for the week-long She Builds program. Always the teacher, he would be so proud of the work Allied Construction Industries is continuing in his name. And yet, the power of women and girls circling one another in a time when they needed help, comfort, a hammer, a wrench, a hard hat, shone through in the Girl Scouts who chose to be exposed to construction opportunities during the week.