Fittingly, later this month I will be going on an Appalachia Service Project (ASP) mission trip with my mom to Virginia. It’s National Volunteer Month, but that’s just a coincidence. While volunteering is the main objective, the relationships and people I have met over the past eleven years supporting this nonprofit have been some of the most influential in my life. As the Christian Education Director at the church we belonged to growing up, my mom wanted to find somewhere in the United States for our youth group to travel and volunteer. We were a small group, so traveling overseas somewhere with a large mission organization was out of the question, and I am so glad it was, or my mom wouldn’t have found ASP.
The organization is a Christian ministry, open to all people, that inspires hope and service through volunteer home repair and replacement in Central Appalachia. Its mission is to eradicate substandard housing and it transforms everyone with whom it comes in contact. As a 14-year-old, the youngest age able to participate, I was beyond excited to leave the small town of Lee, Massachusetts with a group of my family and closest friends to repair homes for those living in Central Appalachia. Between 2016 and 2020, over 61 counties in Appalachia had a median income less than $50,000 according to the Appalachian Regional Commission. During the same period, the child poverty rate in the area stood at 20.2% and at 23.8% for those ages 18 to 24.
What I wasn’t prepared for were the friendships I made with the homeowners and the other volunteers from around the country. When a group of like-minded people get ready for the workday, eat, and enjoy free time and structured activities together for a week, connections are bound to be made. There is a level of trust and camaraderie in the relationships built that is unlike anything I’ve experienced elsewhere. Volunteers and staff are there for the right reasons and each person believes in the power of coming together to make change.
For five days, we load up our work truck with supplies to accomplish the task set forth by the nonprofit’s staff – whether that is laying new flooring, completely renovating a bathroom or putting a new roof on a home. The whole time we are working, we are connecting with our crew and chatting with the homeowner, who sometimes joins in and helps with the construction. We learn about their life, and share more than one could ever imagine sharing with a group of strangers, all the while getting to know the person whose living situation we are dedicated to improving over the week. For me, each and every homeowner is someone special, but a family we worked with in Summers County, West Virginia stands out as one of the more influential experiences. We were tasked with building a wheelchair ramp for a family of three adults and two boys. One of the adults was wheelchair-bound and hadn’t been able to leave the home for a long time. I will never forget the look on his face when he saw the ramp for the first time.
Sometimes there are kids and pets running around, who we become attached to and feel our hearts break for when we say goodbye on our last day. The ache is a good thing. It shows that the time impacted us as much as it made a difference for those whose home we repaired. As defined by Merriam-Webster, a volunteer is “a person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service.” But while I am on these trips I have never once thought of myself as a volunteer. Instead, I feel like I am doing something that makes me happy – helping a friend. It never feels like work, it feels like taking on the day with kindness and joy in my heart all the while making someone else’s life better.
After seven years as a volunteer, this organization and the people of Central Appalachia had my whole heart and I applied to be on staff for the summer. I had the pleasure of calling Bland County, Virginia home and the people there my neighbors. The memories and relationships I made that summer would stay with me forever.
Not all mission trips are the same. If you want to participate in a mission trip, consider one where you don’t have to fly, where you are engaging in the local community and supporting small businesses and can understand the long-term impact of the work the nonprofit is doing.
After three years of not volunteering because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I am finally making the long drive once again to Virginia to bring the best week of my year back into my life. I cannot wait to share my new experience with you in a blog post in early May.
