Mount Vernon UMC of Danville, Virginia

APPALACHIA SERVICE PROJECT (ASP)

ASP is a home repair and home building ministry through which volunteers and ASP staff repair and build homes for low-income families in rural Central Appalachia. The goal is to make homes warmer, safer, and drier, while offering transformational experiences for volunteers and homeowners alike.

Each summer, youth and adults from Mount Vernon spend a week at ASP. In July of 2008 Mount Vernon's ASP team worked in Claiborne County, Tennessee. PHOTOS FROM THE 2008 ASP TRIP

Members of our youth group, along with GWHS Christian Athletes and adults from Mount Vernon and other area Methodist churches, traveled to Waveland, Mississippi, in April 2008 to repair homes of Hurricane Katrina victims. This is the third year Mount Vernon has led a Katrina team that worked on the Mississippi coast during Spring Break. INFO & PHOTOS FROM THe 2008 trip

Teams of volunteer carpenters from Mount Vernon Church are making home repairs for needy families in Danville. Recent projects have included repairing roofs, rebuilding a porch crushed in a tornado, electrical and plumbing work, building wheelchair ramps, and winterizing homes by replacing windows and siding.

Adult and youth volunteers from Mount Vernon meet at the church on designated days, usually Fridays and Saturdays, and form teams that go to the work sites. Other volunteers provide meals and snacks for the teams, and still more Mount Vernon members support this effort with monetary contributions and prayers for the teams and the families served.

On July 31, 2007, Mount Vernon had the privilege of hosting this mission choir of high school youth who are touring the state to challenge and inspire United Methodists to reach out in mission work.

More than 10,000 United Methodists from the Virginia Conference have already gone on short-term mission trips in the past three years.

Mount Vernon church supports Clara Mridula Biswas, a missionary of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. She is assigned as a community worker in Cambodia, where she works to improve the lives of impoverished children in Phnom Penh, many of whom are homeless and live in the street. Clara has worked in Bangladesh and Japan, and she has extensive experience as a volunteer in the Student Christian Movement. Her training in international, cross-cultural, and women's empowerment meetings is vast. She speaks English, Bengali, Hindi, and Japanese.

Born in Barisal, Bangladesh, Clara holds a BA degree in Social Science and a diploma in Rural Leadership and Development from the Asian Rural Institute in Tochigi-Ken, Japan. She is a member of the Church of Bangladesh.

Mount Vernon worked with several other United Methodist churches in Danville on this project in 2003 and 2004. Mount Vernon provided funds and sent construction teams to build this new home on Banner Street.

Today Mount Vernon members continue to work with the local Habitat for Humanity office of this nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing organization, which builds or renovates simple, affordable housing in partnership with people in need.