The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
ON A MISSION
Next Step Ministries builds playground
From staining porches to assembling wheelchair ramps, Next Step Ministries has made a mission in restoring homes and other additions in need of repair in Lorain County.
“A lot of the work we do on houses and porches [in Lorain] are with senior citizens,” said Liz Powers, Next Step Ministries’ Community Development Coordinator and Partnership Coordinator for Ohio.
The organization also works on other projects, Powers said.
One of the many projects this year alone was building a playground for Little Hearts Learning Child Care Center, 220 W. Eighth St. Work began June 18. This week, a group of about 20 volunteers and staff from Ohio and Nebraska are completing the new addition, which will include a shed with deck space, picnic tables and a play set with a rope wall, slide, fire pole, rock wall and monkey bars.
“When we first started here, it was a big pile of concrete, basically,” said Sommer Dilly, one of nine summer staff workers involved in the summer projects.
Dilly said the volunteers worked from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.,
Online: Find more information about Next Step Ministries at NEXTSTEPMINISTRIES.COM
Monday through Thursday, to complete the playground.
For the past nine weeks, the nondenominational nonprofit has garnered 290 volunteers from around the nation to work on summer projects with 15 Lorain families.
Teams of 12-20 volunteers affiliated with a place of worship in their home state work on a project for a week and are housed in a local church during their stay.
Lorain County is one of the 16 locations that Next Step Ministries works in, including Colorado
Springs, Colo., Madison, Wis,, Milwaukee, Wis. (where the organization is based), Los Angeles, Columbus, Neb., Clendenin, W.Va., Fairbanks, Alaska, Lexington County, S.C., Moore, Okla., San Augustine, Texas, Pine Ridge, S.D., Crownpoint, N.M., Fond Blanc, Haiti, Long Island, N.Y., Houston, Texas, and Sumpango, Guatemala.
Other Lorain County projects recently have included multiple stainings in Lorain and building a porch in Elyria.
“We do pretty much anything that we’re called to, just to help the people of Lorain,” said David Brown, a summer staff member and the ministries’ worship leader.
For Nebraskan native Jessie Nelson, 18, this week marked her third mission trip taken with Next Step Ministries, which has worked with the First United Methodist Church in Nebraska she frequents for the past six summers.
Nelson said it’s the mission that keeps bringing her back.
“We just really love the process of the next step mission trips, how there’s ministry and community involvement,” she said. “We’re not just coming here to do the work and then leave.
“Next Step builds a relationship with the community ... It’s good to know that we’re working with [the people of Lorain] and not for them.”