Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke welcomes more than 300 volunteers from across the country who came to Chattanooga this week as part of Group Missions to help repair local homes.School may be out for the summer, but Lookout Valley Middle/High School is full of teenagers from across the country this week – at least at night when the middle and high school students aren’t out working during the day on repairing homes across Chattanooga.
More than 300 youth from 14 states are in Chattanooga this week to help make home repairs for low-income residents of 33 homes as part of a Group Missions trip. A similar trip is planned in early July by more than 400 volunteers who will come to Chattanooga through the World Changers mission program to repair and repaint other houses in low-income neighborhoods.
Chattanooga City Councilman Chip Henderson helped bring this week’s mission trip to his hometown through his own “Week of Hope” mission trips through Temple Baptist Church.
“Through my work in helping take kids from our church to other cities, I became aware of this home repair mission effort and I knew that we have a lot of homes here in Chattanooga that could use that assistance,” Henderson said. “By bringing in these volunteers, we can help stretch our city resources and help a lot of low-income persons at the same time we’re providing a great opportunity for these kids to learn about other people and what they can do working as a team.”
Every morning, the mission trip begins in the school auditorium with a time of reflection, focus and motivation among the student participants, who range from 12- to 18-years old. The students are then teamed up with others from different cities to work as a team on painting houses, fixing roofs and making other minor repairs on homes in low-income areas across the city.