Greenfield Hill Church Appalachia Service Project Trip July 1 to July 8, 2017
After you have read through this information packet, and made your decision, register for the 2017 ASP trip online at www.greenfieldhillchurch (Click the Mission and Outreach menu, and choose Appalachia Service Trip). Registration opens at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6. Registrations will be first come/first served. Our spots with ASP are already booked for next year, based on our best estimate, so once we have filled those up, we will begin placing names on a waiting list. A deposit of $103 ($100 check/cash) is due with registration. Final payment of $464 ($450 check/cash) will be due by May 1, along with three forms (detailed on last page).
A Quick Introduction to Greenfield Hill and ASP! The 2017 Appalachia Trip (through Appalachia Service Project, Inc.) is a mission trip sponsored by the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church for participants in the Senior Pilgrim Fellowship (SPF) program at Greenfield Hill. Any community youth are welcome to participate in SPF, and thereby to register for the ASP trip! Please do note that SPF participation is a requirement for the Appalachia trip. Please also note that the trip participants will be assigned to three different Appalachian counties during our week of service. While every effort will be made to keep in mind request for center placements, each center is a mix of ages, schools and genders it s essential to enter into this experience with an openness to meeting new people! Greenfield Hill s history with ASP: Since 1978, the Senior Pilgrim Fellowship (SPF) has participated each summer with the Appalachia Service Project, a home-repair mission organization designed especially for high school youth. This summer will be SPF s 39 th ASP mission trip! ASP was originally a program of the United Methodist Church. Now an independent non-profit, it is a Christian ministry open to all participants, encouraging teens to understand their home repair work as faith in action. In their own words: ASP provides vital housing services to low-income families living in Central Appalachia as well as transformational life
experiences to those we serve, volunteers offering their service, congregations involved with ASP, and entire communities. ASP runs its summer program for eight weeks each summer, at work centers throughout Tennessee and Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. Teens come from all over the country to do their week of work. The work the teens do is basic, simple home repair, appropriate for teens. To learn more about ASP, visit their site at www.asphome.org What are the requirements for ASP participation? Any 9 th through 12 th grader who is an active member of SPF and fulfills the requirements is welcome to register for the Appalachia trip! o Regular attendance at Thursday evening SPF meetings. Meetings are 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Len Morgan Youth Barn, every Thursday o Completion of the online registration, plus a letter to Alida explaining your reasons for participation, plus a meeting with Alida over the course of the year. o Attendance at FOUR trip preparation meetings: Sunday, Jan. 29 OR Wed. Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26 OR Tues. Feb. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 26 OR Tues. Mar. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Saturday May 20: Construction workshops (times TBA) - ALSO: Commissioning (Blessing) Service at Greenfield Hill Church, Sunday June 25 at 9:30 a.m. o Family participation/help with these fundraising events: (1) Pancake Supper at Chip s! February 13, 2017 Participants will be asked to help sell tickets/sponsorships to this fundraising supper.
(2) Auction for Appalachia March 25 2017 Each participant family will be asked to contribute an item or a service to the Auction anything from gift certificates to tickets to vacation homes is great and much appreciated! (3) Dogwood Festival May 12-14 2017 Appalachia participants run the hotdog/burger stand at the church s annual Dogwood Festival, taking place this year on May 7-8. Each participant will be asked to sign up for a 3-hour shift at the Festival. o Most important: your willingness to enter into the Spirit of the Appalachia Service Project, by working hard, showing love and compassion, being open to others, and respecting the ASP organization and its guidelines! Our total trip will cost us approximately $165,000. Of this, almost $70,000 represents the costs of transportation, including the travel to Appalachia and the vans used throughout the week. The remainder is what we pay to ASP for housing and supplies. Each youth participant is asked to contribute $550 What Does the Trip Cost? (cash/check price): a $100 deposit with the registration, and the remaining $450 by May 1 2017. Please note that the deposit is non-refundable and the payment of $450 cannot be refunded after June 1. (at that point, all payments have been made to ASP). Because youth payments cover only half
of the total trip cost, each participant is also asked to participate in the fundraisers (listed on previous page), which raise the remaining costs. What actually happens during the trip? On Saturday, July 1 all participants meet at Greenfield Hill Church at 6:30 a.m. Four coach buses will take us to Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, where we spend the first night of the trip in the college dorms. On Sunday, July 2, after morning worship together, we break into our work crew, each with its own van, and travel to three separate counties in West Virginia. From Monday to Friday (July 3-7), we will begin every day with breakfast and devotions, work on our homes from 8 to 4, and then be back together in the evening for free time, dinner, chores, and evening gathering. A typical day: On Saturday, July 8: Around 7 a.m., we will leave our work centers in the morning, return to Roanoke to catch the bus home arriving in Fairfield around 11:00 p.m.. Sunday evening, July 9: Welcomehome dinner at Greenfield Hill Church! What s the actual work like? A little bit of everything! painting ditch-digging roof repair roof construction plumbing adding a new room fixing rotting floors building a porch You will be expected to work hard, for sure! But you will be able to do it. ASP chooses its projects with teens in mind; unlike other home-building ministries, ASP has always been geared
toward teen participants. The tasks selected are those which young teens can do, and do well. Are participants with their friends? Because our group is so large (33 work crews this year), we are divided into three different county centers. The center groups are divided to ensure a mix of ages, gender and ASP experience at each county. You are given the chance to let us know some names of people you would hope to be with and we will bear these in mind. But please note that each center is a mix of ages, schools and genders it s essential to enter into this experience with an openness to meeting new people! Each participant is assigned to a particular work crew, a mix of age, gender and experience. A crew is made up of 5 youth and 2 adult advisors and you are guaranteed to make new friends! How many adult chaperones are there, and who are they? The adult/youth ratio on the trip is quite low: 2 adults for every 5 youth. With an anticipated youth participation rate of 155 kids this year, we will need at least 62 adult advisors to accompany them. These adults come from the church community and the community as a whole: we especially welcome interested parents to participate, as well as older siblings, teachers, and others who have an interest in serving others side-by-side with our teenagers. Any adults interested in coming along should get in in touch with we need you!
HOW TO SIGN UP! To begin the registration process, please go to the Greenfield Hill Church ASP page at: http://www.greenfieldhillchurch.com/appalachia-trip-2017/ The registration link will be live as of November 6 at 8:00 p.m. Registration includes: 1) Completing the online form 2) Making a deposit of $103 ($100 check/cash) 3) Sending an email to Alida explaining your interest in the trip 4) Signing up for a personal meeting with Alida Registrations will be first come/first served. Our spots with ASP are already booked for next year, based on our best estimate, so once we have filled those up, we will begin placing names on a waiting list. Final payment of $464 ($450 check/cash) will be due on May 1, along with ASP s required release form, which must be notarized, and Greenfield Hill Church s waiver. Friend requests are also due by May 1. All three of these forms will be available on the ASP page.