Since 2002, Ortonville United Methodist Church members have traveled to a rural coal mining community in Kentucky seeking to improve the lives of the people living there.
This year, eight OUMC members traveled to Wallins Creek, Ky. as part of the annual Red Bird mission trip. They stayed at a Girl Scout camp constructed around the 1930s and worked in nearby Cawood from Aug. 3-9.
‘It’s an extremely impoverished area,? said Rick Hayes, a Groveland Township resident who led the group. ‘Unemployment is high, there are drug problems…?
Hayes was joined on the trip by his wife, Linda, as well as Alex LemMon, a Goodrich High School junior, Dale and Ginnie Richmond, Sandy Wiley, and Steve and Merritt Dietz.
The group was assisting a family they had helped last summer? a young couple in their 20s with five children, ranging in age from 2- to 10-years-old. The father is a coal miner who is frequently laid off from the mines and the mother works part-time as a hotel maid.
‘The mobile home they’ve been living in, not one of us would consider living there,? said Ginnie Richmond. ‘The washing machine is in the bathroom, there are no doors anywhere in the home, no privacy.?
Last year, the volunteers put a bedroom in the mobile home, as well as a walk-in closet, a laundry room, and a mud room. Hayes says the home needed a lot more, so they returned this year to put a roof over the mobile home, put in new windows, add a covered front porch and rebuild the living room from the inside out? rewiring, painting, putting in new carpeting and shoring up the ceiling, which was falling in.
‘They were absolutely ecstatic,? said Ginnie. ‘One little boy was so thrilled because he got a new light in his bedroom and he’d never had a light in his room.?
Dale noted several other families in the mobile home park asked if they could do the same for them. Ginnie calls the countryside beautiful, but the area lacks industry and jobs and a way for people to get ahead. Local churches take up collections of used clothing and household items and every Wednesday in a pole barn give the items away. Needy residents lined up in the rain waiting for the barn to open the week the OUMC volunteers were there.
‘It was an eye-opener,? said Dale. ‘You realize how much you take for granted and how much these people don’t have and what they probably never dream of having… They don’t think about leaving, they have no money to go.?
Alex said the experience made him appreciate what he has? a good family and a nice church that is not far away.
Rick Hayes hopes that he can organize another OUMC Red Bird mission trip next year.
‘It’s rewarding,? he said. ‘You always feel real good when you leave. You look at what you did and the people are grateful.?