Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Youth group members join to repair homes
Area high school students work together on home repair projects
AVONDALE » Families whose homes are in need of repair but cannot afford the cost have a friend in Good Neighbors and the summer Youth Workcamp.
Founded in 1991, Good Neighbors is a faith-based nonprofit organization based in Kennett Square that helps fix up homes that badly need help to make them warmer, safer and drier. During the summer, the group hosts a camp for high school students who are engaged in the repairs for what is often the hottest week of the year.
This year, high school youth group members from the Episcopal Church of the Advent, Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Newark, Garage Youth Center, Grace Fellowship Church, Hockessin United Methodist Church and Presbyterian Church of Kennett Square joined for the project that was headquartered at the Avondale Presbyterian Church last week.
Each day the 54 of them divided up into groups and put their efforts into work at five different locations from Oxford and West Grove to New Castle, Delaware.
The work is heavy and the kids involved learn skills like applying
siding, constructing out buildings, painting, roofing and cement work, all the while overseen by adults who are experts in those particular fields and familiar with building codes.
While it appears to involve a lot of effort and dedication, the young participants say they enjoy it and are uplifted by the results.
Cynthia Thorngate, 18, is back for her fifth year and was busy applying siding at the Oxford site on New Street. She is a graduate of Avon Grove High School on her way to Albright College in the fall. “I keep coming back. Looking at the homeowners’ faces. It’s so pure,” she said.
Not only does she feel enriched by helping others, but said she has also learned to use tools. “I’ve even installed a bathroom,” she said.
When she tells her friends back at school, “People think it’s super cool,” she added.
Many of the people the group helps are elderly and have neither the money nor the physical energy to make the repairs on their homes. That was the case on the house on New Street in Oxford where the volunteers were dispatched to replace the front sidewalk, replace the bathroom floor, removes a collapsing “three-season” room, paint the exterior and fix the roof.
Church of the Advent Family Ministry Associate Rev. Gregory Wilson, who was helping to oversee the Oxford project on Thursday, said the front room that was crumbling had become so unstable that it was forcing the whole house to lean on its foundations. The group removed it and put the remains in a large dumpster that was parked out front.
In the back, another group was digging up old blocks of concrete from failing tool sheds and building a new one. It almost had the appearance of an old-fashioned barn raising.
Katie Griffith from Avon Grove High School and her friend Avery Jones from Unionville High School learned how to use a visual leveler to ensure the proper placement of the new tool shed.
In the front yard, the volunteers were digging the foundation and creating the structures in preparation for pouring cement to make a new walkway.
The members of the Good Neighbors Youth Work Camp spend the week bedded down and fed at the Avondale Presbyterian Church, and they shower at the Jennersville and Kennett YMCAs daily after work. Every morning before they go to the sites, they have a safety meeting. Then on Wednesday afternoon they go tubing on the Brandywine Creek.
On Tuesday night they had a dinner with the owners, and on Friday they had their wrap-up banquet. The meals are provided by a committee of women from the church every day.
In the evenings they share experiences, and at the end have a dedication service.
Safety principles are strongly enforced, and so is a responsibilities agreement signed by the youth. They agree, among other things, to “be diligent to immerse themselves in group and individual devotions, prayer and discussion.”
Fred Burns, who was on the board and is now the camp coordinator, said this: “Volunteering is a blessing in many ways — to yourself and to the people who need the work and receive it,” he said.
The homeowner recipients do not pay for the work or supplies, and Good Neighbors often receives building materials at discounted prices or even free as contributions.
In the weeks following the encampment, the youth are invited to compete in an essay contest describing their experiences. The winner receives $500.
Also, after the summer project is over, the adult volunteers and staff of Good Neighbors continue their work throughout the year.