The Freedom Baptist Association is in the process of coordinating a project that will help any where from 15-20 homeowners starting the first week of July.

Keith McWhorter, treasurer of the Freedom Baptist Association, said it will be a good opportunity for youth.

“It will be a great opportunity for ages 12-18 for mission work,” McWhorter said. “The idea is to rehabilitate homes, strictly outside. We don’t do any inside work, so it could be siding, windows, porches, ramps … those kinds of things. This is for homeowners who can’t afford to do the work themselves.”

Not only can this help the people whose houses get a face lift, it will also be a great chance for youth to get involved and put their efforts where it is truly needed.

“I actually think the greater blessing is with the youth,” McWhorter said. “It’s an opportunity for teenagers to look beyond themselves and look at the world around them. Hopefully that will give them a good push into adulthood. We hope they will continued to look into mission work and continue to reach out. I see that as the biggest benefit of this program.”

McWhorter said it will be a great benefit to the homeowners as well. The program has raised more than $20,000 for use in project materials.

“Churches, businesses, the Clinton County Community Foundation has donated $1,000, and some individuals as well,” McWhorter said. “It’s been a real nice community endeavor to bring these funds together. We are looking at around 100 youth coming in.”

Although there are several youth coming into Clinton County, there is also several from Clinton County who will be apart of the project.

McWhorter said there will be an adult, who is skilled in construction work, who will be with each group of youth to make sure the project goes smoothly and is done the correct way.

“They will make sure they are doing it right, doing it safely, and doing a good quality job,” McWhorter said. “The group, along with the adults, will be staying at the high school in the gym. They will be utilizing the dining facilities for breakfast and evening meals. Lunch will be provided by churches in the area and that meal will be brown bagged to them and the home owner as well.”

One of the plans for the project is for the groups working on the home to fellowship with the homeowners and according to McWhorter, they will fellowship during lunch time.

“It’s a great mission concept that has been used for a number of years through the Kentucky Baptist Association,” McWhorter said. “There are five or six projects going on throughout the state and we are fortunate to be one of those projects.”

People who want to be a part of the project pay a fee that will go towards food and lodging for the week. Those who choose to be apart of the project will arrive in Clinton County on Saturday, June 3, will take a day to get settled in and start work on Monday, June 5.

“We have not done a great bit of recruiting locally because at first there were going to be around 200 people from across the state come in,” McWhorter said. “Our big job was to get the money together. Because it’s a holiday weekend, they are having some issues with some people not volunteering as they hoped they would.”

Tony Boils will be the job site foreman over the project according to McWhorter.

“We are so blessed to have someone like Tony to be part of this project,” McWhorter said.

Homeowners who will be apart of the project started out by filling out an application that was processed through the Freedom Baptist Association at the state level. McWhorter said this was done to ensure no local influence was put into who was accepted into the program.

“We are strictly reaching out to whomever is in need,” McWhorter said. “It looks like, right now, we won’t be able to do more than 18-20 homes. We were thinking we were going to have around 200 people come in and we were looking at doing around 30 homes, but with only around 100 volunteers coming in we don’t think we can reach as many homes.”

If anyone would like to volunteer for the project, contact Kathy Conner at 606-306-3034.