An Olympic-sponsored program that provided job training for people building podiums for the Vancouver 2010 Games is still operating as a basic carpentry school one year later.

The school is so busy that former trainees have been called back to the project's East Vancouver warehouse to help slice up the Olympic podiums to provide parts used to make palm-sized Games souvenirs that are sold online.

The podiums — and 11,000 other items — were constructed in the shop by previously unemployed youth, women, and new Canadians.

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee originally had set up the shop — bankrolled by the Rona hardware chain — as a program for some of the city's most needy residents, said manager Mark Hetherington.

"We took them, we changed their lives," said Hetherington. "We trained them, taught them how to get out of bed in the morning, taught them a little bit of hygiene, a little bit of nutrition and a lot of carpentry."

A total of 64 students learned carpentry skills through the program, which is still training 17 students at a time.

"We built everything … stages, platforms, wheelchair ramps, a lot of sport equipment, ski racks," said Hetherington.

Graduates lives changed

Apprentice Patrick Jackson — one of the former trainees called back — said it took a while for him to appreciate how his life was changed.

"At first, it was more like its a job and then you get more like, 'Wow this is actually pretty something,'" said Jackson.

Even though he was cutting up what he spent hours putting together, Johnson said he's enjoying it.

"You're still doing the same thing, you're sharing a dream with everybody else."

Another of the original apprentices is Trevor Wycott, who said he appreciates what the Fabrication Shop has done for him, but is still ambivalent about the billions of dollars spent on the Games.

"I'm kind of on the fence still about how I feel about the Olympics," he said. "There are so many more different issues, way more important than the Olympics I think ... [such as] housing in Vancouver."

With files from the CBC's Curt Petrovich and Stephanie Mercier