Appalachia Service Project
www.ASPHome.org
How did ASP get started?
Appalachia Service Project (ASP) was once a dream in Methodist Minister Glenn “Tex” Evans’ heart. While serving in Eastern Kentucky, Tex witnessed the great need for home repair assistance. He envisioned a way to meet this need by matching high school youth groups with families in need. By transforming Christian faith into action, ASP helped to alleviate poverty’s consequences while encouraging growth in Christian faith and Stewardship.
In 1969, ASP’s inaugural summer, 50 volunteers came to Barbourville, Kentucky, and repaired four homes. Now, each summer, 14,000 volunteers repair 350-500 homes. In all, over 240,000 volunteers from across the nation have repaired more than 12,500 homes and, in the process, Appalachian families, volunteers, and staff have been immeasurably blessed.
SUMC Appalachia Mission Team 2010
With today’s highly mobile lifestyle, families often become spread across the country. Living in a fast paced society, we often miss the value of simple things. Visiting the rural Appalachia region is in many ways a throwback to an earlier time. Extended families live in close proximity and are constantly ‘dropping by.’ Recreation is found in the beauty of the natural mountain setting. Communities must hold together to survive.
Swansboro UMC sent five youth-focused work teams totaling 31 participants to Lee County, Virginia led by Bill Eubanks and Clyde Keagy (Swansboro), Roger Fulp (Cape Carteret), Roy Staebler (Emerald Isle) and Tom Scholl (Stella). The Swansboro group was joined by groups from Des Moines, Iowa and Memphis, Tennessee for the week. This is the eighth year that the church has participated in the Appalachia Service Project by performing home repairs in one of the poorest regions of our country. Lee County is located at the Cumberland Gap where Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee come together. It has a beautiful Smoky Mountain setting, but poverty rates double the national average. The population has declined 13% in eight years as coal and timber jobs have declined and able bodied and younger residents move to other areas to find employment. The tradeoff between strong extended family ties and opportunity is evident. “Even more than fixing homes, we are called to bring hope and encouragement and to accept people - where they are - unconditionally, in Christian love,” says Dave Johnson who organized the effort. “Our teams found joy in relationships with the families that overcome financial circumstances. We strengthened the foundations of their homes, but also listened to their situations, read Bible stories and played games with their children and shared meals and friendship. A fifteen year old family member, Trey, had said he really didn’t want to meet the people working on their home, but when Sarah Simpson challenged him to a basketball game, the boundaries were dropped. He realized he could be friends with these strangers from the coast and his horizons were instantly expanded by a simple gesture of friendship. You can’t help but be changed yourself when you take the time to share in other people’s lives. In a way, you become part of the family.”
Imagine you’re with us on Thursday night: All of the families gather for a cookout at the local park. The kids and youth take a swim or play in the sand box or shoot hoops or throw a Frisbee. The adults tell stories and reminisce. Clyde’s team brings fourteen family members, perhaps a record, and Bill’s team brings eight. All of our new families are there. Angee Stewart, a first-time ASP volunteer, sits with family member Charlie in the picnic area as he has cerebral palsy and is uncomfortable joining the 120 person prayer circle gathered to bless the day and the meal. Angee’s team leader, Tom, opens the prayer “Hello God, It’s me, Tom.” Charlie turns to Angee and adds, “That’s my God, too!” We are one with our family and our extended family and with our church family and with God’s family.
The team hosted a congregational dinner July 16th to recount their experiences and to thank church members and the community for their encouragement, prayers and support. It was unanimous – everyone is excited to do it again next year.
SUMC Appalachia Mission Team 2009
A team of 15 youth and 8 adults from Swansboro and Tabernacle United Methodist Churches honed their construction skills in preparation for their seventh annual mission team with the Appalachia Service Project. The effort serves to help those in need make their homes safer, warmer and dryer. This group worked on the homes of those in need in Campbell County, Tennessee in June. The primary training project was extensive repairs to the entry of the Swansboro American Legion Post 78 that made it handicap accessible. The group also built picnic tables for the Son Set Refuge, a Christian camp near Ayden, NC.
“The problems of the poor continue, so our work continues…everyone can do something beautiful for God by reaching out to poor people in their own countries. This is the future - this is God’s wish for us - to serve through love in action…”
~ Mother Teresa
For the seventh year, the youth of Swansboro United Methodist Church (SUMC) took these words to heart as they served the needy of the Appalachia region by doing home repairs. Seventeen youth and eleven adults, including three from Tabernacle/Belgrade UMCs, worked to make homes safer, warmer and drier through the Appalachia Service Project (ASP). It was a long trip to Campbell County Tennessee (north of Knoxville on the Kentucky border) where the poverty rate is 23.9%, but the experience proved rewarding.
On returning, Hannah Simpson, a rising junior at Swansboro High School reported her experiences to the church congregation. Speaking of homeowner Kathy and her wheelchair bound grandson Wesley, “It’s amazing how happy people can be with next to nothing. They can have a rotting foundation, the roof can be collapsing in on them and they can still be the happiest people you ever met.”
Church groups from Michigan, Florida and Georgia joined the Swansboro group in living at the local elementary school for the week. All the groups and the local families joined for a picnic on Thursday evening. Corey Crawford, a rising Swansboro High School senior, told SUMC how one family was told they would be getting running water for the first time later this summer. A young girl in the family was heard to say “Does this mean that I can be clean when I go to school next year?” Corey reported, “That got me thinking about everything we take for granted, such as: having a sink, being able to brush your teeth, not only taking a warm shower, but taking any shower at all. When we heard that we were able to do this for this family, everyone was overcome with joy. This taught me to be grateful for everything I have.”
Tina, a divorced mother of two boys ages 6 and 11, had been hit by lightening when she was 10 and is now experiencing gradually debilitating nerve damage. The ASP staff stopped to offer help when they saw her with her walker on a collapsing porch. Thanks to the hard work and generosity of our area churches, Tina now has a deck and ramp structure that will give her mobility. She held back tears watching her two sons make new friends, learn new skills and gain a sense of accomplishment while working with our youth. Another Swansboro crew replaced underpinnings and built a new roof structure for homeowner Linda and the fourth crew repaired floors, walls and sealed the roof for Rosa and her extended family.
“The theme for our 2009 ASP was ‘Putting Faith Forward’ and our team did just that. I was really impressed with the eagerness of our youth to not only work really hard, but also to show love and concern for the families we served and the groups we lived with all week. It was wonderful to see the generations of the church work and laugh together. Six of our eleven adults are over sixty and our youth are as young as fourteen, but it felt like one happy family,” said Dave Johnson who organized the trip.
In her concluding remarks to the church, Hannah summed it up pretty well, “ASP, last year and this year, are the best thing I’ve done with my life.” She encouraged the congregation to “jump at the opportunity to go on a mission trip and experience the joy of serving others.”