Ridgefield’s Jesse Lee Appalachia Service Project (ASP) departed in a raucous send-off this morning, with 310 high-school students and adults off on a weeklong mission trip to make homes in West Virginia and Virginia “warmer, safer and drier.”
Based out of Jesse Lee Church, Jesse Lee ASP is in its 42nd year and is the largest local ASP group in the country. The total of 310 volunteers means that more than 1 percent of Ridgefield’s population is away on the trip!
The volunteers departed early Saturday morning after a commissioning ceremony at Jesse Lee with family and friends. They will split up, working next week in Clay, Fayette and Greenbrier counties in West Virginia, and in Scott County, Va. 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’ll eat and sleep in “centers” organized and operated in schools and churches by the national ASP organization.
Saturday’s departure celebration includes recognition of 13 teens who have participated in ASP during all four years of high school. They are: Will Anderson, Tess Coakley, Audrey DeMatteo, Patrick Foley, Jake Gillan, Zach Harper, Lucas Mathews, Casey McClellan, Will McKinstry, Ben Olsen, Charlotte Osher, Lauren Uecker and Ben Zonder.
Additionally, Charlotte Osher 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 38th 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 Jesse Lee ASP volunteers will return to Ridgefield in a long honking caravan on Sun., July 5 around 4:30 p.m. For an updated time of return, watch the website www.jesseleeasp.org that 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.