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Young volunteers help community

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By LISA HOBBS Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Young volunteers help community
Among the numerous activities the McPow group has been involved with is cleaning the cemetery located at the end of Crisp Springs Road. The cemetery, which has numerous old headstones, took a week to clean. During cleaning, one stone was found along with several pieces that had fallen from it. Pictured, from left, are Beth Cox and Eddie Ware. They are examining the pieces and placing them on the stone.

It?s summertime and that means kids are playing sports, swimming, or just having fun doing nothing.

However one group of kids sacrificed some of their free time last week to serve their community.

So who are these good-hearted kids who think about their community first and having fun second? Their organization is named McPow, which stands for McMinnville People Out Witnessing. This is the second year McPow members have given their time to help the community.

For these 170 teens, their days began early last week as they meet at the Cornerstone Church at 8 a.m. Monday through Friday to have praise and worship. From 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., the large group divided into 10 groups and were given specific tasks to be accomplished for the day.

?It wasn?t that bad,? said Beth Cox referring to getting up early during the summer. ?We did have a lot of fun during the week. It was worth it.?

The teens washed houses and cars, built a porch, put rails on a porch, cleaned a cemetery, held three backyard Bible Clubs, and had door-to-door witnessing, just to name a few activities.

After a hard days work everyone gets to go home, but they gathered one more time at 6:30 p.m. for a little summer fun.

Monday night the group played the Price is Right; Tuesday night the group went to Gilley Pool; Wednesday night the group played Survivor; Thursday night a singing contest named Hometown Idol was held; Friday night they enjoyed a Block Party.

The idea began three years ago at Cornerstone Baptist Church. After discussing a $10,000 trip to Florida to do mission work, several of the church?s teens had a different idea.

?They wanted to help our community instead,? said Eddie Ware, youth pastor at Cornerstone. ?So that?s what we decided to do. Our goal was to try and show the community the love of Christ by serving them.?

That year, the church organized its teens to go out and help in the community daily for one week. In 2005, after hearing about the wonderful experience from the teens who participated the year before, the McMinnville Area Youth Ministries (MAYM) organized McPow.

Last year, there were six churches which participated. This summer, the event attracted eight churches. Plans are to continue McPow next year.

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