This summer, a team from Saint Luke transformed homes and lives. Hundreds of Central Appalachian families in need are living in homes with leaky roofs, soft floors, and unsafe porches or stairs. Appalachia Service Project forms teams to provide critical repairs to make families’ homes warmer, safer, and drier.
Our 2023 trip marked our 8th year sending teams to ASP (2013 thru 2019), and the 11th year supporting ASP (2020, 2021, & 2022 financial support).
Mawwiage
The Red Team: John, Elizabeth, & Sam Muir, Noah & Siena Schulz, Shaun Snyders, and Jessica Lee Tinneny (Thursday & Friday)
The Home: Code name Mawwiage, located in Sullivan County, Bluff City, TN, was a two-story house that was in need of a new roof, siding, and an access ramp to the side door.
The Homeowners: Buddy (grandfather), Christal (grandmother) and lots of grandchildren. The grandchildren that we met were Alexis (Lexi), Ezra, Finn, Sutton. We were told that as many as 8 grandchildren lived with Buddy & Christal in this 2-bedroom home. The family was like others that we have met while on ASP, where the grandparents were raising the grandchildren due to the parents having a drug addiction problem.
Buddy and Christal were awesome people! Buddy was born with a heart problem that worsened as he aged. This problem recently required that he have a defibrillator in addition to the pacemaker surgically implanted. This resulted in him no longer being allowed to drive a truck and he lost his job.
Buddy and Christal moved to this house to help Christal’s father who was in his 90s and could not care for himself. There was a lot of history that they openly shared with us. The most interesting was the chimney made from stone that was transported by horse and wagon from a nearby quarry.
The Week: We were paired with another team from the Congregational Church of New Fairfield, CT., fantastic people that we worked really well with. Prior week’s teams had completed a new roof, underpinning, installed insulation, house wrap and started the siding. Monday through Thursday all of us worked on completing the siding. Noah & Siena were fantastic cutting and installing siding. Friday was spent priming all the exposed woodwork. Unfortunately, ASP was unable to procure the permit to allow for the ramp construction. I suspect the ramp will be built in the coming weeks.
Miracle Max
The Blue Team: Jodi Cunniffe, Gillian Heckert-Mitchell, Dawn Heckert, Ben Lammers, Shannon Rose, Fred Schulz, and Jessica Lee Tinneny (Monday – Wednesday)
The Home: Code name Miracle Max located in Sullivan County, Blountville, TN, was a one-story house that was in need of every kind of repair imaginable (new drywall, new subfloor and flooring repair due to water damage, painting).
The Homeowner: Stephanie. Others living in the house were her boyfriend, Tommy, and two children (Bella & Joseph). Both Stephanie and Tommy worked, and had come out of bad relationships. Stephanie was able to get herself and the children out of an unhealthy relationship and into a house that she owns.
The Week: We were paired with a team from Bethel United Methodist Church in Connecticut, and they were an awesome group to work with! Our work consisted of removing old flooring and repairing the subfloor. There was also drywall replacement in the bathroom and then painting. After repairing the subfloor, we put down lauan in preparation for the new floor. We also framed out a window in the bathroom.
As usual the ASP staff were amazing! Lindsey (center director), Ashtin (Volunteer Coordinator), Henry (Finance Coordinator), and Katie (Operations Manager) made it a wonderful experience. In addition, Forest & Cody were HXPs working at the center managing homes being repaired.
Our host for the week was Celebration Church located in Sullivan County, Blountville, TN. We stayed in their community hall. It had air conditioning, hot water, and a beautiful kitchen! This was the nicest center that we have stayed in!
We were able to celebrate Independence Day together watching fireworks in Bristol, TN! The Thursday night picnic with all the volunteers and families had a special guest, Saint Luke’s own Katharine Gilbert! Katharine, who now lives in Knoxville, TN, was able to join the blue team for the day working at their site and staying for the picnic. Some may not be aware that ASP at Saint Luke is a direct result of Katharine going with another church in 2012 and insisting that Saint Luke participate in this amazing ministry!
During the week $8,200 was donated from the church’s participating. This is the largest amount we have seen to date! The Friday night share circle was amazing as always! Listening to all the volunteers speak about where they saw God that week was so inspiring. As always, God was clearly visible to all of us in so many ways while on ASP! We made unforgettable memories with our homeowners, staff, and the other volunteers, and it was great to be serving in Appalachia again!
If you want to learn more about the impact of our work, contact/reach out to John & Elizabeth Muir. And, be sure to save the date for the week of July 4, 2024 so you can serve with ASP. We would love to have you join us!