240 youths set to repair, paint houses in LR

Work on 13 homes planned

Youth volunteers with World Changers (from back to front) Jacob Erickson, Jennifer Fernandez, Alexia Delamatte and Amber Piper scrape paint from a home on Woodrow Street in Little Rock on Tuesday during an event highlighting work the group is doing to help Little Rock senior citizens with home repairs.
Youth volunteers with World Changers (from back to front) Jacob Erickson, Jennifer Fernandez, Alexia Delamatte and Amber Piper scrape paint from a home on Woodrow Street in Little Rock on Tuesday during an event highlighting work the group is doing to help Little Rock senior citizens with home repairs.

With paint scrapers and paintbrushes in hand, 240 young volunteers from across the nation will spend a week of their summer vacation fixing up Little Rock homes.

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World Changers volunteers Jennifer Fernandez (left) and Amber Piper (center) talk with Andre Bernard, director of Little Rock’s Department of Housing and Neighborhood Programs, and homeowner Betty Frazier (right) on Tuesday in Little Rock. Frazier’s home on Woodrow Street is one of 13 homes in the city that the group will repaint or repair over the next few weeks.

Amber Piper, 14, of Springdale was one of 54 teenagers in the city this week with World Changers, a Southern Baptist missionary organization that works with communities to repair houses for elderly homeowners.

Last summer, Amber worked on a house in East St. Louis, Ill., and she said she felt called to serve another community. She was joined Tuesday by several other members of Brush Creek Baptist Church in Springdale.

"I just want to help [the homeowner]," she said. "I just want her to feel loved."

Betty Frazier, who has owned the home on Woodrow Street for 21 years, said Tuesday that loved is just how she felt as the students started working. Under the shade of a tall maple tree, she watched the students climb ladders, scraping off chipping paint.

"These kids are a blessing," she said. "It's very encouraging to know that someone is concerned about helping people like me."

By Friday, the house will have a fresh coat of bone-white paint with pale brown trim.

"And I'll be proud," Frazier said.

The second group of World Changers will bring 186 students to Little Rock on July 6. In total, the volunteers plan to paint and repair 13 homes in the city.

This summer marks World Changers' 12th visit to Little Rock. The benefiting homeowners -- who must be 62 years old or older and meet income-level requirements -- are chosen by Little Rock's Department of Housing and Neighborhood Programs.

This summer, the organization's 12,000 volunteers will complete projects in more than 75 cities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

The volunteers pay, on average, $260 to participate in World Changers.

The seven students from the First Baptist Church of Protection, Kan., sold bedsheets, baked goods and 250 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to raise money for the trip to Little Rock.

"We are here to serve," said Candy Murphy, an adult church member from Protection. "This work instills in students a lifelong commitment to God's work."

Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola agreed.

"The ability to improve homes and lives really is God's work," he said at a kickoff event Tuesday morning.

Calling the city's relationship with World Changers "a great partnership," Stodola said the repair work the students provide is a needed service in the community.

"We wish we could be doing this work all year," he said.

Andre Bernard, Little Rock's director of Housing and Neighborhood Programs, said the department set aside $45,266 for the program.

If a typical job of painting a house costs $5,000 with labor and materials, he said, painting 13 homes would cost about $65,000. Add in the labor cost of the minor repairs done by the group, and the cost would rise.

"You can see significant savings with World Changers," Bernard said.

World Changers isn't the only service group working in Little Rock this summer.

Two teams of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps members are also completing service projects in Little Rock. The 18 participants, 18to 24 years old, arrived April 24 and will complete their work July 13.

Nine of the members are helping Wildwood Park for the Arts with garden restoration while the other nine partnered with Little Rock's Love Your School Initiative, hosting nutrition and cooking classes as part of an effort to fight childhood obesity.

Sherrell Rosser, the media representative for the Love Your School team, said the AmeriCorps projects have served the Little Rock community "in a great way."

"I think we connected with the kids here, and I personally saw the benefit of some of the things we did for the school and community," she said.

That's what the World Changers volunteers are hoping to do as well.

In the yard of Frazier's house, the World Changers team--calling themselves "the level heads" -- posed for a group photo. Standing on the plastic tarp and wielding paint scrapers, the team stood with a long, yellow level balanced on a few of the taller volunteers' heads.

"This is an amazing way to really impact lives while serving God," said Jacob Erickson, 16, from Coldwater, Kan. "But it's a lot of fun, too."

Metro on 06/24/2015

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