LITTLE ROCK — Nearly 300 youth volunteers descended on Little Rock's rooftops this week shingling homes in need of repair and doing other work.
Megan Wilson, 14, of Duluth, Ga., is spending part of her summer vacation for the second year with World Changers, a Southern Baptist missionary organization that works with communities to fix up houses for elderly or disabled homeowners who might not otherwise be able to afford repairs.
"It brings us as a group closer to God," Megan said, explaining why she "really, really enjoy[s] this trip."
World Changers volunteersare repairing homes in Little Rock for the third straight summer. This year the organization is sending 23,000 junior high, high school and college students to 95 communities in the world, said John Bailey, the team leader for World Changers at the North American Mission Board, a missionary organization with theSouthern Baptist Convention.
"We would like to see these teenagers return to their communities and see their lives as an opportunity to serve others," Bailey said.
Casey Rawls, 22, a World Changers spokesman who has worked with the mission for four summers, said one of the best things about the program is that the volunteers form a partnership with community leaders.
The city's Housing and Neighborhood Programs Department identifies the houses through an application process and spends $50,000 for the supplies and materials using federal Community Development Block Grants.
Homeowners who are 62 or older or drawing disability are eligible to apply for the program as long as they meet certain income-level requirements, said George Brown, housing programs assistant with the department.
By the end of the week, World Changers aims to have repaired 25 homes, which would bring its total in Little Rock during the three years to 75 homes.
Brown said all told, World Changes has saved the city $750,000 in labor costs.
And Rawls said the work benefits the student volunteers, too.
"To see the joy and excitement in the homeowners' faces just blows them away," she said. "It changes their world at the same time that they're changing the people in Little Rock's world."
Altha Richard, 78, has lived 53 years in her Chester Street house, which is getting a new roof and a fresh coat of paint this week.
"I'm so grateful and thankful," she said, expressing regret that she couldn't bake for the volunteers as she used to do for area schoolchildren. "They'll never know how much I thank them.
"They've been working just like bees," she said, looking around at the teenagers hauling the old shingles off the roof and into a Dumpster at the curb.
One of the volunteers working on Richard's house has dedicated time to World Changers forfour summers. Tiffany McDugle, 16, has spent the past three summers working on homes in Texas. The Palestine, Texas, native said she's been a painter in the past and this is her first chance to roof.
She said she likes the work, but she also enjoys the part of the program after the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. workday.
The students and their adult chaperones are staying at J.A. Fair Magnet School, where they eat breakfast and dinner, sleep on the floor and worship together in the evenings.
"It's learning more about the God and his word," McDugle said of the worship time. "It's near my favorite part of the day."
Volunteers pay $260 to participate in World Changers.
"It's good, too, for the community to see that the younger generation is good," Rawls said. "There are some bad apples in the bunch but these students are wanting to make a difference and do the right thing."
Arkansas, Pages 11, 14 on 06/26/2008