Community Christian Church

-

-

Teen Volunteers Help To Make Needed Repairs to Homes in Aurora

Published July 31, 2007 - The Daily Herald

By Andre Salles

AURORA -- In September of 2003, Orencia Devine had a stroke. She's confined to a wheelchair now, after numerous surgeries, and she lives with her daughter on Grant Place. She hasn't been out of the house too often in the nearly four years since her stroke, not because she can't, but because her daughter's house has no easy way for her to get out. Jenn Koetz, of Green Bay, Wis., paints the railing of a house on Maple Avenue on Aurora's East Side Monday afternoon as part of a City of Lights Workcamp.

RELATED STORIES

Whenever she has to leave the house, her son and grandson come to pick her up and walk her down the steps leading to the driveway. But by Friday, Devine will have a brand new wheelchair ramp, leading down from her back door, courtesy of some helpful volunteers. Those volunteers -- nearly 300 of them from all across the country (and a couple from Canada) -- will be in Aurora all week, working on up to 50 different houses, doing everything from simple paint jobs to major modifications, like Devine's wheelchair ramp.  The City of Lights Workcamp is a missionary collaboration between the Colorado-based Group Workcamp Foundation, which sponsors camps all over the world, and Community Christian Church on Emerson Lane in Naperville. The volunteers will spend the week at Cowherd Middle School, sleeping on air mattresses, and will use their days to lend a hand to people they've never met, in a city most of them have never been to.

The volunteers are mostly high school students, ages 14-17, and many of them have participated in work camps before in other states. Blake Hubbell, a 16-year-old from Maryland working on Devine's ramp, said that he started last year, with a camp in Buffalo, N.Y. "My youth group was doing it," he said, "and I'd heard it was great fun, and a good experience. I've met a lot of really great people, and learned a lot of great things." Auroran Tony Lowe, the camp's director, has been involved with the Group Workcamp Foundation for years, and participated in 25 camps around the U.S., as well as in Belize and Mexico. This is the first time a camp has come to Aurora, and for Lowe, it's been an interesting experience. "It's surreal to me to be here," he said. "Usually when I'm doing this, I'm somewhere far away. But I've made some interesting observations (about the need here)."

Lowe called the Aurorans his groups are helping this week the "invisible neighbors," those who were once a vibrant part of the community, but then watched it change around them. He said the residents initiate the application process, through various organizations, and that the Group Workcamp Foundation selects elderly, disabled or low-income people to assist. The City of Lights Workcamp has more than $30,000 to work with, thanks to grants from the East Aurora Weed and Seed program and a federal Community Development Block Grant for $15,000. But much of the money comes from the volunteers themselves -- collectively they put together $9,000 to help fund the work camp. Lowe said the response has been so good in Aurora that the Foundation has scheduled another workcamp here for 2008.

For Kelsey Frassica, a 16-year-old from York, Maine, the week is about helping people. She's on her second work camp, and said she hopes to continue with the program, becoming a staff member one day. She and her fellow volunteers laughed and joked as they painted the wood trim of a home on Maple Avenue, one of three houses in a row getting exterior and interior work on that street. "I love doing stuff like this," she said. "I love giving back to the community." Sabrina Mosby has lived on Maple Avenue for 23 years. Volunteers are in the process of taking the overgrown vines off of her house, and giving it a fresh paint job. Mosby sees the Workcamp as a good sign for the next generation. "I feel like we're leaving the world in good hands when I see young people like this volunteer to do this," she said.

For more information on Aurora's workcamp, log onto www.cityoflightsworkcamp.com.