Youth get hands-on look at construction careers

Aug 11

More than 175 children and family members got an inside look at the world of construction on Tuesday, July 29, during EV Construction’s third annual Future Builders event. Held at the under-construction Pine Rest Pediatric Center of Behavioral Health in Grand Rapids, the interactive experience offered a rare opportunity to explore an active job site for the facility set to open in March 2026. It will be the first behavioral health center in Michigan dedicated entirely to children and their families.

The event welcomed children of EV employees, trade partners, and Pine Rest staff to explore a real construction site and participate in a variety of hands-on building, engineering, and safety-themed stations. The goal of the event is to plant seeds of curiosity and introduce young people to the numerous career paths available in the skilled trades.

“We believe that inspiring future builders begins with exposure — letting kids see, touch, and imagine the world of construction up close,” said Mike Novakoski, CEO of EV Construction. “Future Builders is a fun day for families, but it’s also an important step toward addressing the labor shortage that’s already affecting our industry.”

According to the National Center for Construction Education & Research (NCCER), over 40% of the U.S. construction workforce is expected to retire by 2031. With growing demand for new talent, initiatives like Future Builders play a key role in sparking long-term interest in construction careers.

Participants had the chance to:

Operate mini excavators and climb inside real construction equipment courtesy of Excel Excavating
Ride in a scissor lift for a bird’s-eye view of the job site
Take guided job site tours featuring an interactive scavenger hunt around Pine Rest’s future facility
Explore the job site in virtual reality, walking through the Pine Rest facility before it’s even completed
Watch a construction robot (nicknamed EV3PO) in action, drawing logos and layout lines with precision
Create a mini plumbing system using PVC pipes, couplings, and their imagination
Mix and pour concrete to create decorated stepping stones to bring home
Build a cardboard tower and knock it down with a swinging wrecking ball
Learn about safety gear and even build a personalized first-aid kit at the Safety First Headquarters

Each station offered both a hands-on activity and a “Construction Connection,” helping kids understand how each tool or concept is applied in a real-world project, such as Pine Rest’s new pediatric facility.

“Welcoming the Future Builders event to our job site meant much more than showing a building — it was sharing a dream in the making,” said Heather Treib, Project Executive, Pine Rest. “Pine Rest’s Pediatric Center of Behavioral Health will soon be a place where children and families find comfort, care, and hope, even in their hardest moments — a place where kids get back to being kids. Seeing so many children here today, full of energy and curiosity, was a beautiful preview of the future we’re building toward.”

West Michigan Newspop Digital Partners