Summer fun has been balanced with summer service projects for scores of teens in Fayette County who have volunteered a day or a week of their vacations to help their less fortunate neighbors.

“We live in a cornucopia area,” said Linda Lake, youth director at Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Peachtree City. “We do things with our young people that expose them to another way of life.” This week, Lake took 10 teens to the Atlanta Children's Shelter, where they performed a skit and played with the homeless youngsters who stay at the site while their parents work or try to find employment.

“They love it,” Lake said about the youth that participated. “We're planning another visit for Aug. 2.

The group included Laura and Anna Griffith, Kara and Sam Grubb, Sara Cline, Jamie and Michael Ferris.

Members of the LifeTeen group from Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Peachtree City were part of a 300-member Catholic Heart Workcamp assisting the poor and elderly last month in Orlando, Fla. According to LifeTeen coordinator Andy Costantine, their work focused on repairing and painting neighborhood houses and spending one-to-one time with children in the local day care center.

“Part of this project is called `Paint the Town,'” Costantine said. It is administered by the county's health and family services agency.

Despite sleeping middle school classrooms and taking cold showers, Costantine said his crew “loved it.”

“The kids have really promoted it... next year we want to bring three times as many.” The work camp volunteers included Kenny Jubb, Stella Kwak, Katie Cox, Jessica Lovelace, Maribeth Nolan, Janee Patterson, Brittany Poisso, Nicole Remillard, Brian Schmidt and Jeff Schortmann.

McDonough Road Baptist Church headed west to Superior, Mont., where 33 members of the youth choir and drama group — accompanied by nine chaperones and for several days their pastor, the Rev. David Chancey — led Vacation Bible School at Superior Baptist Church. The group also conducted a “back yard Bible club” and performed at five different locations during the evening.

Their final job included reroofing the pastor's residence. A letter from Superior Baptist's pastor, the Rev. Randy Daniels, sums up the impact the visit had on the community. “The way they ministered in VBS, back yard Bible club, the concerts and the roofing project still has me in awe. They have done more to aid the ministry of this church than anything else I have seen in the year and a half I have been here, and, I believe, in the one-year history of this church.”

For the fourth consecutive year, adult and youth members of Fayetteville Christian Church traveled to Juarez, Mexico to work with Casas por Cristo, a nondenominational ministry dedicated to helping the poor through spiritual and physical means, particularly by building houses.

Helen Thornton, Fayetteville Christian's church secretary, said the homes they have built are for families who have no homes, or who simply live in cardboard and tarpaper shacks. While in Juarez, the volunteers were housed in the local church and worked under the auspices of Casas por Cristos. In three days, the mission team constructed a two-room house for a family selected by the organization.

Thornton said their house was built for a family of four.

These structures cost approximately $2,500 for a single family home up to $4,100 for a large house or church. Materials are purchased in Mexico to stimulate the local economy, Thornton explained, and the team provides all their own food and necessities. Casa por Cristo is headquartered in El Paso, Texas; phone (800) 819-8014.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page