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Letter to the Editor

CAPA Donates Auto Body Parts to Kent Intermediate School District

Washington D.C. -- The Certified Automotive Parts Association (CAPA) has donated nearly 500 auto body panels to the Kent Intermediate School District’s Career/Technical Center for Auto Body Repair in Western Michigan. These parts will be used to give high school students technical, real-world training in collision repair work.

Each class session is over 2 hours long, with 80 percent of that time spent doing repair work on the shop floor. Every student is assigned an auto body panel, such as a fender, into which the instructor has knocked a dent comparable to what would be seen at an automotive repair shop. The student is then graded upon how they repair the dent, and must demonstrate the ability to repair it using 3 different techniques. Prior to this donation, two students had to share one body part to perform repairs. Now, with the additional panels donated by CAPA, each student has his or her own part on which to work.

"CAPA is proud to be able to serve the community by donating parts to the Technical Center," said Jack Gillis, Executive Director of the non-profit association. "We hope that training on the parts will help make these high school students the collision repair technicians of the future."

The parts were originally used as part of CAPA’s Vehicle Test Fit Program. In order for a part to become CAPA-certified, it must be validated through CAPA’s independent, third-party testing facility to determine that it will properly fit on a vehicle, within specified guidelines. This program helps insure the quality of every CAPA certified part.

Rather than discarding the parts, it was determined that they could serve a useful purpose in educating students at the Technical Center. "The Center offers a wide variety of high-tech programs for the college-bound and career-tech student. Thanks to CAPA, our students can work on new sheet metal and follow up-to-date procedures," said Jarrod Herman, Auto Collision Instructor.

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