Photo by Olivia AndersonMoscow Pullman Daily News February 17, 2026
MOSCOW — A Moscow nonprofit wanted to give its building a facelift.
A group of Washington State University engineering students wanted to put their skills to the test.
On Monday, they partnered to assemble a new steel awning at the entrance of the Disability Action Center building.
“It’s a great cooperative project because they get to practice on some real world problems,” said Mark Leeper, DAC Northwest director.
DAC is a federally funded nonprofit that provides counseling, skills training and transportation to people with disabilities.
The students, who are part of a club called WSU Engineers in Action, had worked with DAC before. Last year, they collaborated to create a wheelchair obstacle course in Pullman aimed at educating people on the difficulties disabled people face when trying to move around town.
Leeper said the student engineers were eager to work with the DAC on other projects. So, they came up with the idea of designing a new awning.
“They just kind of jumped onto it,” Leeper said.
Leeper said the awning is necessary to protect the south-facing entrance of the DAC building from getting uncomfortably hot during sunny days and drenched during rainy days.
Vicki Leeper, DAC outreach coordinator, said the WSU students saved the DAC thousands of dollars by designing the awning themselves and getting those plans approved by the city of Moscow.
WSU student Haley Boileau said she and her peers learned a lot through the process of designing the plans, communicating with contractors and getting the appropriate permits. The rewarding part, she said, is seeing their designs be fabricated and assembled together.
They worked with Moscow’s Mundy’s Welding, Balustrade Construction, Moscow Building Supply and Lewiston’s Custom Coat to get the supplies they needed.
Ben Chaney, of Balustrade Construction, supervised the project with his colleague Howard Jones.
He said this was his first time working directly with students on a project. He called it a “really good experience for them” to apply their skills in the real world and learn from mistakes.
For example, the students figured out how to work around an unanticipated slope in the concrete where the awning was anchored.
Chaney showed them how to measure the angles of the awning and fasten them together.
The students worked with power drills, socket wrenches and just plain old elbow grease to assemble the white, steel frame Monday.The DAC rewarded them with pizza for lunch.
Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.
