Youth Mission Helps with Home Makeover

Each year, World Vision community service teams travel to West Virginia to help repair houses and rebuild community facilities. Last summer, the Pharis Family received a new roof and windows. The team was able to build this new roof and replace old windows because of supplies donated through the World Vision Storehouse.

For many months, Brenda and Tom Pharis cringed at the thought of rain. With each downpour, streams of water poured into their modest home in isolated Junior, West Virginia.

“My roof was falling in,” said Brenda, the mother of three.

Unable to pay for repairs, the leaks continued—until in the summer of 2008 a World Vision community service team arrived with tools in hand, ready to repair the roof. Each summer, hundreds of individuals from U.S. corporations, church groups, and families visit West Virginia’s low-income Appalachian communities to repair houses and rebuild community facilities. More importantly, the visitors come to build relationships with those living in these often depressed communities.

The team used new donated building materials from World Vision’s Storehouse distribution center in Philippi, West Virginia, to upgrade the Pharis’ home far beyond the roof repair. “. . . They redid my porch. Put two new windows in my porch. Put a new bathroom window in for me. And two windows in my stepdaughter’s room,” says a grateful Brenda.

Tom took a day off work to join the team in repairing his home, and jumped in after work on the other days. The Pharis sons, 8-year-old Raymond and 6-year-old Austin, also helped, and the team encouraged the boys to work right alongside them. Brenda says, “They call them their little helpers.”

Project beneficiaries must log volunteer hours through World Vision’s Timebank program helping others in the community. Brenda says that her daughters want to get involved in volunteering and she sees that as a plus. “I like to get my kids more involved, and I think this is the way to do it with the volunteer hours.”

For the Pharis family, the transformation went beyond home repairs. One evening, community members and visiting volunteers met together at one of the local churches. Brenda says it was the first time either of her sons had been in a church.

She recalls that out of the blue, Austin asked, “Mommy, where’s God at?” As people around them commented on how cute the question was, she and Tom explained how God is present everywhere.

Bettering the community and creating relationships among people from different walks of life is what World Vision’s community service opportunities is all about. The experience, Brenda says, was “amazing.”

World Vision is thankful for the generosity of our corporate partners who donate the building supplies needed for many summer projects like this. We look forward to the opportunity to help more families in need this summer thanks to new teams working on service projects and the continued support of our corporate partners.