Camp Joy 2003

Youth Group at Camp Joy: Our Hands, His Heart

On July 13, following a sending forth by the parish, the St. John's Youth Group embarked on its ninth year of attending CAMP JOY (the name is an acronym for "Christian Appalachian Mission Project Joining Other Youth"). This mission project, founded in 1990, brings together church youth groups from around our region to repair the homes of the disadvantaged, elderly, and sick in the tri-state region of West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania surrounding our home base of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. This year, we embarked on our trip with stomachs full of ice cream and shortcake from the Strawberry Festival and happy knowing we were bringing a RECORD $3,100 the Youth Group earned in donations toward the cost of Camp Joy materials (thanks to all who helped us meet our fundraising goal!). We looked forward to a week of hard work, good sleep, new friends and fellowship. We had our work cut out for us this year! With 14 campers, three alumni work leaders, and four chaperones, we had the ambitious schedule of working on seven different work sites in two states.

First up were two of our most challenging sites, neighbors outside of Indian Springs, Maryland. Bernice Warner lives in a trailer home she had shared with her late husband for over 25 years. The roof leaked, causing water damage to her kitchen ceiling, and needed repair. In fact, she had her son place old tires on top to keep it from whistling whenever it was windy. Mrs. Warner was confined to a wheelchair due to bad arthritis and a bout with breast cancer. An especially sensitive matter was the fact that her bathroom door no longer closed properly, since the doorway had to be cut larger to accommodate her wheelchair. She had no privacy and this bothered her greatly. In the kitchen, a non-supportive wall also caused her some strain in getting around and needed to be cut back to allow her wheelchair passage. A front porch ramp, built by another Camp Joy group years ago, needed re-carpeting to provide traction and the porch ceiling needed cleaning and painting. Our group worked for five days at this site: re-tarring the roof (and putting tires back on top), cleaning, painting and re-carpeting the front porch, repainting the kitchen, cutting back and staining the kitchen wall, repairing the kitchen ceiling panel and replacing the light fixture, and building and hanging a beautiful new door for the bathroom. We all worked at this site, but Hank Frey especially had his hands full with that door! Ask him about all the challenges of hanging a door on a home that can settle differently each day.

Next door, Mr. and Mrs. DeShong were facing a crisis. Mr. DeShong had a biopsy of a tumor in his neck when Jim and Jeff Bradley and I visited earlier for the pre-work site inspection. By the time we arrived, he was recovering from surgery and was facing radiation treatment for cancer. Throughout his ordeal he was a strong, funny and honest man and one of our favorite homeowners this year. The DeShong home needed vinyl siding on about half of it, including the second story. We needed to repair the roofing, which was incorrectly placed originally and caused leaks in the bathroom. The kitchen was renovated by removing the old, worn linoleum and replacing it with new tiles. Some ceiling tiles were also replaced, and then the entire ceiling painted. A covered-up fireplace had become a nest of ants and we removed the paneling, killed the ants, and cleaned up that wall. We took five days to complete this job and the DeShongs were so happy and grateful, they said it looked like a "whole new house."

Out of our other five projects, two were especially rewarding. Edith Germouth is a widow who is handicapped and hearing impaired. She had purchased paint for the outside of her house, but it had sat around for years because no one could paint the house for her. She had long been a contributor to Camp Joy and her own granddaughter had worked last year. This year, Camp Joy helped Mrs. Germouth. We repainted the entire outside of her home which had two colors of paint: white and red. After power-washing and sanding the rough spots, we painted around the upper portions of the wall and the roof lip in red paint. Then we went back around with white paint for the walls and windows. Whenever one color paint got on the other, we wiped quickly and touched up the spots....from white, to red, to white again, at times! We also rebuilt a roof for her storage shed. Mrs. Germouth was so pleased, she insisted on hugging us all and began to cry as she thanked us. She told us she was impressed at how well the youth worked together and that we had "special stars" in heaven for us as a reward. We gave her, as we did all our homeowners, a Bible provided by Camp Joy with all of our signatures in it. Mrs. Germouth affected a lot of the kids who worked at her site and showed us how meaningful our work is to the homeowners we help.

Mr. Lloyd Roman and his wife live only a few yards from the border with Pennsylvania, in a home with beautiful cats, dogs, and a rabbit. His battle with diabetes has left him in a wheelchair with one of his legs amputated below the knee. His wife says that the other leg will probably have to be removed as well, and he is still adjusting to this major change in his life. His company let him go from work before his pension could go into effect, further hurting the family. We prepped this site for future work by scaling the peeling paint on the aluminum siding and power-washing and power-sanding the wood trim. We also painted all of the wood trim white. Although we spent only a day and a half at this site, Mr. Roman really enjoyed watching the work and interacting with the kids.

Our other sites had smaller, but still important jobs, in the eyes of the homeowners. It is easier to appreciate your effect if you fix someone's roof that is falling in, but the pride that people have in their home's appearance is also a valuable gift we can give. Mrs. Edna Shives is a widow who mows her own yard and does her own work. But she couldn't paint her tool shed on her own. We spared several hours of our time and re-tinned the roof and repainted the sides for her. Mrs. Ada Walls, also a widow, needed a new basement door that could survive the elements. We built her a new door from pressure treated wood that will last her for years. And Carol Halderman, a single woman in Pennsylvania, had no way of using her heating system because the thermostats were unreliable and couldn't be trusted to not cause a fire. We replaced seven thermostats, fixed a broken bedroom window, and hung a new storm door for Ms. Halderman.

We worked long days this year, from 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday. On Wednesday, we cut out an hour earlier to enjoy some snacks and swimming at a lake at Cacapon State Park. At camp, we slept in tents and took turns cleaning the upper pavilion and bathrooms with the other church groups. Each night after dinner we returned for a vespers service planned by different church groups and led our own vespers the first Sunday night. Breakfast was served at camp at 7 AM and lunch was sandwiches at the camp site, but the dinners were hosted at local churches and the food was good and hot. The kids worked hard and played hard, too, making new friends within our group and also with the other church kids who also come year after year.

We had four first time campers: Woody Campbell, Annelise Frey, Jamie Godwin, and Katie McDougal. Getting into a routine of physical labor can be a hard adjustment, but you could see them learn, grow, make new friends, and take on new responsibilities. Our returning crew was dedicated, tough, and worked together quickly: Chris Bradley, Rick Bradley, Francis Craig, Cynthia Grimes, Erin McDougal, Cory Refshauge-Jones, Ange Royall-Kahin, John Wainwright, and Cat Whitehead. Emily Gallivan drove to and from camp two days in a row to help, as did alumna Jen Jaskiewicz. Our essential alumni work leaders were Jeff Bradley, Jeremy McDougal, and Brenden McDougal (with over 20 years combined Camp Joy experience) and our chaperones were Jim Bradley, Hank Frey, Doug Jones, and I. The tradition of Camp Joy is dependent upon the knowledge these alumni and chaperones share with the group, and we could not do this every year without their dedication!

What more can I say? We completed our jobs. Friendships were forged and bonds were tightened. Memories were made and traditions kept. Seeing the look on an owner's face when his or her home was improved made it all worth our while. But don't take our word for it, see the pictures by the elevator in the West Avenue lobby or check out our Adult Forum on Camp Joy coming this fall. Remember, we do this every year, so keep an eye out for our fundraising efforts to help out more owners this year. With a record 66 sites total for this summer, the workload for Camp Joy is always growing. And like this year's motto, it is "our hands, his heart" that keeps the spirit of Christian outreach going both in our youth group and at Camp Joy each year.

Nicole Hillman, Youth Group Director