Hardin Valley FWB

Our young people (13 counting two adult leaders) helped at the renovation/clean-up for Sober Living of Greater Cincinnati (renovation of an old apartment building to house men trying to change their lives).  When we arrived at the site, there was already a group of hard-working FWB youth from another church.  I dropped the first load of our kids at the ‘house’ and went to pick up the remainder of the youth waiting patiently at our hotel.  When I returned to the work site, to my astonishment, Joel (the on-site adult leader with Sober Living) notified me that the Reach That Guy volunteers had done everything that was scheduled to be done. Of course, we were disappointed but we knew God would provide something else for us to do. The other volunteers left, but our group remained behind.  I called Brian Hart – the ’supervisor’ of the renovation project to see if he had other things elsewhere in the city that we could do.  He told us to stay where we were and he would pick up some equipment for us to use at the Sober Living site.  My kids were so excited – they were even more excited when Mr. Hart arrived with crowbars.  Now they could be destructive and it would be for a good cause!  Old paneling was removed from the walls at an accelerated pace and everyone was in the action (from sweeping to throwing debris out the window to placing debris in the dumpster to removing paneling to removing ceiling tiles).  The kids were so excited; within just a couple of hours the large dumpster was full; the company arrived and removed the dumpster but they were unable to provide another one.  We continued to remove paneling until the floors were full; with no dumpster, we swept and left to eat lunch. Joel said that Reach That Guy volunteers had completely filled two large dumpsters in three days and saved his group several thousand dollars during the three-day period!  Praise God for the young people who give their time and to the adult leaders – like you – who organize these service activities! Thank you!

Now for the specifics of our group – our church, Hardin Valley FWB Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, had 13 participants who worked four hours each for 52 total hours (arrived 9:15 am; departed 1:15 pm).  Comments about the experience:  “Awesome!!”, “We can tear something down to help build something up!”, “Everyone was so friendly, and Joel was so nice!”, Our young people worked hard and got dirty – all for a very special cause!  Thank you!

Jerome Grant, Director of Youth
Hardin Valley Free Will Baptist Church
10415 Hardin Valley Road
Knoxville, Tennessee  37932