Local Methodists volunteer in Appalachia

MONROE-Fifteen youth and nine adult leaders from the Monroe United Methodist Church are spending this week in Magoffin County, Kentucky, helping a local family repair their home as volunteers for the Appalachia Service Project. The group left on June 26 and will return on July 4. To prepare for the trip, the volunteers spent nine months raising $12,000 for travel expenses and equipment and supplies. They sold "stock certificates" in the project to members of the church congregation and organized a number of other fundraisers, including an auction and an evening at Pizza Uno's Chicago Grill, which donated 20% of dinner sales from diners who presented a coupon. The Reverend Glenn Evan founded the Appalachia Service Project in 1969. Since then, more than 200,000 volunteers from across the country have repaired thousands of homes. The ASP is part of the General Board of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church and in 1998 was designated an "advance special"—a mission project that has special impact in areas of highest need—by the United Methodist Church's General Board of Global Ministries.