High-school students and adults from Ridgefield are on their annual Appalachia Service Project mission trip this week, with a near-record 268 volunteers working to make homes “warmer, safer and drier” in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Based out of Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church, Jesse Lee ASP is in its 40th year and is one of the largest local ASP groups in the country. The total of 268 volunteers means that more than 1 percent of Ridgefield’s population is on the mission trip this week. The total also is just shy of Jesse Lee ASP’s record of 280 volunteers set in pre-COVID 2019.
The volunteers departed early Saturday morning after a commissioning ceremony at Jesse Lee with family and friends. They split up, working this week in Dickenson County, VA; Leslie County, KY; and Sullivan County, TN. Crews of two adults and five students team up to repair, build or replace roofs, foundations, floors, mobile-home underpinning and wheelchair ramps, while also developing relationships with the homes’ residents. They’re eating and sleeping in “centers” organized and operated in schools and churches by the national ASP organization.
Saturday’s departure celebration included recognition of six teens who have participated in ASP during all four years of high school. They are: Nikolai Bonwetsch, Dean Mosiello, Ryan Mosiello, Luke Pereira, Nick Sganga and Ian Swiatowitz.
Additionally, another recent RHS graduate, Abby Seal, was named the recipient of the John Ward Love in Action Award, a $1,000 scholarship established in 2017 that honors John Ward, who is in his 36th year of participating in Jesse Lee ASP. The scholarship is awarded to a graduating senior who has been on ASP at least once and who has committed to ongoing community service in other arenas besides ASP.
The ASP volunteers will return to Ridgefield in a long honking caravan on Sun., July 7 around 5 p.m. for a welcoming reception at Jesse Lee. For an updated time of return, watch the website www.jesseleeasp.org on Sunday afternoon.
Funds to support Jesse Lee ASP’s work were raised through car washes held at Jesse Lee on Saturdays this spring, from “stock” sold by participants, and through gifts from the Jesse Lee congregation.
Jesse Lee ASP will celebrate its 2024 work in two ways: with an ice cream social at the church on Sat., July 13 at 6:30 p.m. featuring a slide show of all the crews’ experiences; and a special Sunday-morning service on July 14 at 9:30 a.m. All are invited to both.
Appalachia Service Project is a national Christian volunteer organization whose participants make an annual weeklong mission trip where they work to make local folks’ homes “warmer, safer and drier.” Since its founding in 1969, more than 420,000 volunteers from across the nation have repaired 18,500 substandard homes in central Appalachia.
Jesse Lee ASP is open to anyone who has completed their freshman year of high school.
For more information, call Jesse Lee Church at (203) 438-8791 or go to www.jesseleeasp.org.