Mt. Carmel youths work to repair homes

A number of church groups and student groups use the summer months to do some of their most hands-on mission work, and the effects of that work are being felt locally.

One of the groups carrying out local mission work is the Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church youth group. Each year, middle and high school students involved in the youth program at the church embark on a week of local community work and a week of work in another part of the state.

Youth group leader Al Strader said the church has been active in Carolina Cross Connection, a western North Carolina-based outreach ministry, for about 15 years.

“We’ve been doing it a long time,” Strader said.

Through this ministry, the church’s youth have been traveling every summer to spread a message by way of helping families in need with home repairs.

But it wasn’t until three or four years ago, Strader said, that the church decided to also spend a week focusing on needs at home in Rockingham County. The kids help out in any way they can – building wheelchair ramps, painting, doing yard work – tasks that are easy for the young and able but present a challenge to the elderly, the ill or those who simply can’t afford to do the repairs themselves.

In the sweltering July heat, youths worked Monday and Tuesday afternoons building a wheelchair ramp for a woman on Harrison Crossroad Loop. Leah Ward and Lindsey Smith used a buzz saw to slice pieces of wood into the length they needed for the ramp.
Brandon Walker heaved shovels into the dirt to dig holes. And Will Strader and Keith Martin pounded nails into boards.

Alison Strader, Al Strader’s 17-year-old daughter, serves as a junior staff member when the group goes to the Carolina Cross Connection Camp. She said she was excited the group decided to tackle such a big project like this one this year.

Typically, she said, they encounter the larger-scale projects when they go away to camp. The ramp was quite a job to tackle for the youth group, she said.

The sweaty, grueling work is worth it, Alison Strader said.

“It kind of gives us a chance to go out in the community and meet people we didn’t know,” she said.

Meeting those who need a little help and being able to provide that help is what it’s all about, according to Alison Strader.

“You have that connection and it brings the community together,” she said.

This year, the youth group is carrying out its local work this week and then will follow that up with a week at Camp McCall in Bostic, N.C., near Shelby.