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From Clayton County in North Carolina to Wisconsin, Indiana and Texas and many others places, YouthWorks and their leaders are in Rutherford County through the end of July.
Ari(ana) Kopf of Richmond, Virginia is the site director for YouthWorks youth groups in Rutherford County and on site recently in Spindale, said the youth are working closely with several nonprofit groups in Rutherford County to do projects for low income, seniors and working with children.
The groups are volunteering this summer with Rutherford Housing Partnership (RHP), Habitat for Humanity's ReStore, the Salvation Army Thrift Store, Chase Corner Ministries, the Mary Mullen Bible Camp, Washburn Outreach Community Center, helping children at the YMCA and other areas.
Youth from Clayton County spent part of their week recently helping to renovate a home on Pennsylvania Street in Spindale. The home belongs to RHP and when it is completed, the house will be for rent.
Several youth were scraping old paint from doors and windows.
At Washburn Outreach recently more than 20 youth from Wisconsin helped pack food boxes for distribution, worked with the summer library program and worked in the Washburn thrift store.
Youth will continue to be in Rutherford County through July working at the same locations and on different projects.
While working in Rutherford County, the volunteers are being housed at Spindale United Methodist Church.
In the evenings volunteers in Rutherford County have had an opportunity learn more about the area and to engage with community members.
While at the Washburn Outreach Center, one volunteer told Tim Davis the youth had had a great opportunity to interact with the community folks.
At Chase Corner Ministries the groups also helped pack and distribute food boxes and worked in the thrift store.
According to Cynthia Cooper, director at Chase Corner Ministries.
"We are blessed this week by YouthWorks mission team. They wear their mask while they work, but we had them remove them so you could see their beautiful faces. They are serving here this week. We had other plans, but had a flood in our basement over the weekend so they have been dealing with water downstairs so we could help clients as usual."
Cooper said she learned many of the volunteers had fundraisers at their respective homes in order to raise the money to come to Rutherford County to volunteer.
"The pastor leading them said he had served as a leader since 2004 and he loves YouthWorks because they teach humility, service and teach-ability to these youth," Cooper said.
YouthWorks provides Christ-centered mission trips for thousands of teenagers and adult leaders in communities across the U.S. and beyond.
"We believe that these kinds of mission trip experiences positively impact the communities we partner with, the teenagers who are stretched and challenged through a week of service, and the adult leaders who build mission trips into the ongoing discipleship of their teenagers," said a YouthWorks spokesperson.
The staff has been creating mission trip experiences for teenagers and adult leaders for more than 25 years.
