Ohio Youth Group Repairs Wayne County Mobile Home Damaged by Flood

“I really truly believe in this sort of work for youth. It gets them out of their comfort zone, takes them out of their culture, gives them new experiences and they learn new things. These kids probably didn’t know what insulation was used for before this week”, said Marilyn Freeman who was one of the group leaders. Marilyn, Youth Director at Richfield UCC and Faith Formation Director at Pilgrim UCC, has done faith formation work for over 30 years and considers service highly important for the development of independence for youth.

The Pilgrim UCC from Cuyahoga and Richfield UCC are part of the National United Church of Christ Organization and combined their youth groups to increase impact. The youth are responsible for raising the gas, food and supply funds for yearly mission trips through bake sales, carwashes and spaghetti dinners. Once projects are completed, the teams present what work was accomplished and what they learned at Sunday morning congregation.

The Mingo County Long Term Recovery Group formed for the recovery of Mingo County after flooding in August 2014. The group has remained active in helping with the recovery of counties affected by the March and April 2015 storms and is coordinating with WV VOAD agencies to bring volunteer groups for housing repairs. Long Term Recovery Group President, Judy Hamrick, explains that “When these groups come in, what we have to do is model the work to fit the group and its skills and match that to an incident or a house”.

West Virginia VOAD is a humanitarian association of independent organizations that may be active in all phases of disaster. Its mission is to identify unmet needs and facilitate efficient streamlined service delivery to those imperiled or impacted by disaster while eliminating duplication of effort through cooperation, coordination, communication, collaboration in the four phases of disaster: preparation, response, recovery and mitigation. West Virginia is a state chapter of the National VOAD.