Centre Dufferin’s Co-op Corner

February 28, 2019 · 0 Comments

Student: Tristan Prentice

Placement: Somerville Van Lines

This week Tristan Prentice from Centre Dufferin District High School shares a little bit about his experience and how Somerville Van Lines is contributing to the community’s future.

Paul and Val Somerville provide an excellent quality moving service anywhere in Ontario. Alongside this, they also run Lake View Tree Farm where they have multiple varieties of trees like Scotch Pine, Spruce, Balsam Fir and Fraser Fir.

As a Mover with Somerville Van Lines my main duty is to move furniture. Some of my other daily duties are preparing a trailer to get ready for a move and then driving to a pickup location. Once we get there we assist Paul with backing up the trailer and dropping the ramp. We lay out pads throughout the house in the doorways and landings. Some of the special equipment that we use would be a 4 wheeled cart to move a cabinet, freezer, fridge, pianos or trunks. I also use a two wheeled cart that also moves fridges, boxes and plant pots. We use a piano skid to get pianos down stairs. We also use straps to move beds, freezers and fridges.

When working with Lake View Tree Farms as a Christmas Tree Farm Worker, I work on the farm trimming, shaking, hanging and wrapping Christmas trees. We have to use special trimmers to trim the tops of the trees. A knife is used to trim up the tree to a cone shape to get that nice look. Additionally we shake all the dead needles off the tree then hang them up and wait for someone to pick out or cut their tree. If they cut it, we shake it then wrap it. In this job I have to be able to lift over 60 pounds and be able to maneuver within tight spaces.

Jobs that could be associated with this placement might be branching off to a large moving company where I would have a chance to move nationwide, like going from Ottawa to California. I could also work for townships being an Arborist.

Somerville Van Lines helps to move a lot of people in and out of Shelburne, and we take pride in doing good work. Also Lake View Tree Farms provided trees to the Honeywood Fire Department.