For the second year in a row Danville teens are giving up a week of their summer to help repair and clean up homes.
For several years the youth of Trinity United Methodist Church traveled to Richmond with a program called ?Impact Richmond? to repair homes there, but last summer they decided to organize projects in the Danville area, according to Sandra Payne, a volunteer with Impact Danville.
Teens from several area churches joined the Trinity kids for the week-long program this week, along with adult volunteers with the needed skills and experience. Other volunteers provide transportation, snacks and homes for the 35 kids to shower.
Joclyn Rhone?s children have participated in the past and three are involved this year.
?I will never be able to describe how awesome it is to see kids ? especially your own ? do something like this,? Rhone said. ?Here they are, in July, sweating and working so hard for someone else, and there are no complaints from them. Honestly, we have to tell the kids to stop working.?
The teens pay a fee to participate and then stay away from home, cell phones, video games and TVs for the week, camping out at Trinity at night.
It?s not all work and no pay, though, Rhone said. There was a block party at Trinity?s parking lot on Sunday night, eating with their work crews at various restaurants, bowling, swimming and a Danville Braves game.
A local band, Brothers Under the Sun, comes each night. There is also a worship service every night with a visiting pastor and a homeowner?s night on Friday night where the homeowners are invited for a meal and to worship.
?The kids get to introduce their homeowners to the rest of the group. They can?t wait to do that every year,? Rhone said. ?They are so proud to have them there and to honor them ? The homeowners truly are grateful and?often emotional about what the kids do. There?s a lot of trust that goes with this, on both sides, and by the end of the week there?s a bond between the two sides.?
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More than last year
Impact Danville had three projects last year, but this summer has worked on nine houses in the city and county.
?This year we added a landscaping crew as well that will go from site to site doing yard work,? Rhone said. ?The kids will be doing anything from painting to gutter work to building decks to yard work. They will dry lock basements, replace doors, paint rooms, paint the outside of houses and refurbish decks and fences.
?We try to go above and beyond the expectations we set for ourselves. And the kids will constantly add to what they are doing ? They just can?t do enough that week.?
One crew worked on a home off Halifax Road this week, repairing a deck, stairs and the roof for an older couple. They also painted the windowsills and cleaned up the yard and a carport.
?It?s just great to help people out who can?t do anything to help the way they are living,? said 17-year-old Joe Seamster.
The couple invited the kids in to enjoy the air conditioning while eating their lunches and Seamster got a bonus ? he found out he was a cousin to the homeowner.
The daughter of the couple also treated the teens to brownies and lemonade.
Kim Johnson, 16, also on the crew, said that it was fun spending her summer this way.
?If I?m capable of working on these houses, I don?t know why I shouldn?t,? she said.
Source: http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/jul/27/teens-make-impact-danville-homes-ar-2090184/
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