80 teens on mission trip help repair homes in Butler County
Jul. 21—Volunteers from all over the country with the Catholic HEART Workcamp were hard at work in Butler County this week helping low-income homeowners with repairs and general sprucing-up projects.
Supports to Encourage Low-Income Families (S.E.L.F.) coordinates the home repair projects through its Neighbors Who Care: Home Repair program. What started as a one-week event in 2010 has become a year-round volunteer-driven initiative.
Anita Grewe, a 59-year-old disabled Middletown homeowner, had a crew of teens painting her home this week. A task she couldn't possibly handle after two hip and knee replacements and both her hands repaired, "I'm eaten up with arthritis; they say my bones is of an 87-year-old woman." She said the help was invaluable.
"I thought these kids, how much do they know about painting, I'm older than all of them, two or three or four times as old and I don't know much, so what are they going to know about this stuff,," she said. "I'll tell you they all got the paint brushes together and before I knew it they was painting it... It was just wonderful."
The Catholic HEART Workcamp sent 260 teen volunteers on a mission trip to Cincinnati on Sunday and 80 of them spent the week helping homeowners here with repairs like mobility modifications, interior and exterior painting and other projects to help homeowners live more safely at home and avoid costly code violations.
Evan Gill traveled from Pennsylvania; Tuesday was his 17th birthday.
"I just power washed it, cleaned it off and now we're making it look brand new," he said about Grewe's house. "It feels pretty great because we talk to the people, the residents and we find out about their stories and it's really heartwarming to know that we're making a difference, and helping people in ways they can't do themselves."
Casey Rose Colcombe, 17, from Pittsburgh, was with a group that helped demolish an above ground pool in Hamilton. It wasn't your typical yard project. Before they could tear down the pool "we had to cut all these trees down in this forest" that was inside the pool. Then they had to use clippers before they could mow the lawn "because it was completely overgrown."
Colombe said she and her group were there on Monday and Tuesday and were hoping to help the disabled homeowner with more projects on Wednesday.
"That's pretty exciting and that's something I'm striving for and our group is striving for, because we're ultimately here to help," she said. "I think it would be very rewarding to connect with her more personally and see her life, and help her in ways she couldn't even envision when we first showed up."
Group Mission Trips, another faith-based mission trip organization, helped repair a dozen homes in June. SELF Executive Director Jeffrey Diver said they get volunteers of all ages helping with the home repair program, but it is especially good to see young people pitch in.
"It's extremely exciting to have young people who've committed time out of their summer to go and help those who are less fortunate with home repairs," Diver said. "It kind of restores your faith in the future when you see these young folks working hard."
SELF offers a host of multi-faceted programs, many designed to help the less fortunate lift themselves up economically and others to help them out in emergencies. Beyond their usual endeavors, the Butler County commissioners partnered with the agency on a huge undertaking to dole out millions in federal pandemic assistance.
The county was awarded $20.4 million in emergency rent and utility assistance from the federal government and that money is almost gone, after helping 2,772 people keep the lights on and stay in their homes. SELF also received other funds and all told has spent $27.7 million helping 5,455 residents.
Diver said they have around $1.8 million left to disburse. In the spring the agency had a backlog of more than 200 applications, they briefly suspended the program May 26- which has happened a couple times — to get caught up. They plan to reopen applications in early August.
Although the pandemic hit more than three years ago, Diver said people are still qualifying for funding because they have either caught COVID-19 or have been economically harmed by it.
