World Changers teens Elliot Wehner, Jennifer Barton and Erin Wise, from left, work to build a wheelchair ramp at a home in East Ridge on Thursday.By lunch Thursday, about 30 teens and young adults had laid tarpaper and shingles on a roof, partially built a wheelchair ramp and filled in cracks in the stucco walls of a dilapidated 65-year-old house.
“Thank Jesus for clouds,” said Kimberly Barrett, an 18-year-old from Mississippi who hoped the cloud cover would protect her and her fellow workers from spending more time in the heat they’d been working in since 7:15 a.m.
Barrett is one of the youths who came to East Ridge this week to fix houses as part of the Baptist mission called World Changers.
The mission takes Baptist students to different cities around the country to spend a week fixing houses. In all, 324 people from 13 states arrived in East Ridge on Monday to labor together.
East Ridge Revitalization, a group aimed at improving the city’s look and image, paid for the youths’ supplies and chose the 12 houses they’d work on, but the teens and young adults paid anywhere from $100 to $400 for the mission trip, depending on how much money their churches kicked in.