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Guilford High School 2022 graduate Carson Tosta worked on assembling an engine hoist that was donated to the high school shop class, along with Palumbo Automotive's Peter Palumbo.

Guilford High School 2022 graduate Carson Tosta collected tools and equipment for the high school shop class. Pictured here, with some of the donations are, from left, Tosta, along with Palumbo Automotive’s Peter Palumbo, and Guilford Texaco’s Jim Betulia.

Guilford High School 2022 graduate Carson Tosta worked on assembling an engine hoist that was donated to the high school shop class.

GUILFORD — Guilford High School 2022 graduate Carson Tosta continues to work to make his alma mater’s shop class better for future generations.

With his diploma in hand and his eyes set on attending Rochester Institute of Technology, the 18-year-old embarked on a solo project to add more hand tools, metal fabrication machines and pneumatic tools to the class, including screwdrivers, wrenches/wrench sets, drill press, C clamps, grinders, sanders, calipers, lathe tools and torque wrenches.

Tosta said he felt there was a need for these specific tools.

“It’s going to allow students to be able to use these tools while they’re working on many other projects,” he said. “Before we had to use shared tools. This allows students to bring one of these carts over, bring a set of tools over and work on their own project.”

“It allows more stuff to get done, in a timelier fashion,” he said.

Local businesses and individuals were quick to respond to a Facebook post to donate the requested tools and equipment.

“He’s wonderful making friends, making contacts,” said Peter Palumbo, owner of Palumbo’s Automotive in Guilford. “He’s a networker and I love that about him.”

Tosta’s major at RIT will be mechanical engineering, but working on cars has always been a passion of his.

“I have a few old classic cars at home that I’ve been restoring, one of them I’m doing for my mom because of all she’s done for me,” he said, referring to his mother’s 1964 Volvo.

Standing beside him, his mother, Donna Tosta, said she and her husband, Scott, are very proud of their son.

“He’s always been a great kid, as far as looking out for the community needs,” she said.

“He went through (Boy) Scouts here in town, made his Eagle (Scout) at 15,” Donna Tosta said. “He did the Bittner (Park) posts and signs for the disc golf course. He always has had that giving community spirit.”

Tosta and his mom stood in the parking lot of Palumbo’s Automotive where Palumbo worked alongside his employee, Richie Roonie and Jim Betulia, owner of Guilford Texaco, putting together an engine hoist, to lift an engine out of the under hood of a car.

This piece of equipment was a donation from Guilford Texaco, in addition to an LED flashlight, vacuum and fuel pump tester and a belt sander.

The following local businesses made donations: Page Hardware & Appliance, $250 store credit; Palumbo’s, two metal tool boxes, a floor jack, torque wrench and socket organizers; Sean Hosmer, Shoreline Snap-On Tools representative, a set of screw drivers and a quarter inch drive socket set; Lela and Matt’s Car Care Clinic, $500 worth of tools; and the Guilford Community Fund, $500 gift card.

“It’s amazing to me that there’s a lot of people in the community who care and will go out of their way to help younger people be able to improve their quality of education, as well as give them the tools necessary to start something in their life that they can find a passion and continue forward with it,” said Tosta.

Many in the community embraced the project.

“When you have something in the community, we all want to be part of it,” said Hosmer. “With my business being based on the Shoreline and Guilford being part of my route I just felt it was something to do, just because we can and it’s a good cause.”

Lela Stokes, co-owner of Lela and Matt’s Care Clinic, applauded Tosta’s efforts.

“Carson is an amazing young man,” she said “What he’s done is just unbelievable. Where he’s going to be in life, I can’t wait to see.”

“I love to see kids getting their hands dirty and wanting to know more about this industry,” she said. “There is a nationwide shortage going on right now of people in the trades, so anything we can do to help that, we will.”

Betulia also lamented the shortage of young men and women entering the automotive trades.

“Anybody that shows interest in it, we welcome it,” he said, adding that he has two interns currently working at his shop.

“This trade is going to go by the wayside if we don’t help in getting people interested in it,” he said.

Tosta talked about being inspired by other students in his metal shop class.

“Whenever I walked into the class, I’d see kids getting really excited and really inspired about being able to do stuff of their creation, their own design, taking it from a pen and paper to a physical object whether it be on a CDC machine or on a milling machine or a lathe or just welding something together,” he said.

“I saw how excited people got and it inspired me, too,” he said. “I wanted to give them something to add on top of that, so they could take it that extra step further.”

“I figured if we had that stuff that we always said we needed then we could vastly improve our curriculum, as a more possibilities,” he said.

Principal Julia Chaffe echoed this.

“I think he’s had such a positive experience with our technology education classes that he wanted to do a nice thing for his teacher who was so helpful to him through his four years of high school,” she said.

“I think it’s an incredible gracious thing for him to do and I think it shows incredible respect for the work that our technology education teachers are doing every day,” she said. “His actual goal was to enhance what’s already there.”