By Susan Bromley

Staff Writer

In Altoona, Pa., deep in the Appalachian Mountains, an assistant pastor named Nate and his wife now have a new porch on which to relax thanks to the efforts of an Ortonville youth group.

Josh Eschmann, a recent Brandon High School graduate, as well as Kerrigan Tomas and Jessica Andrus, who will both be BHS seniors this fall, were among 13 youth and three adults from St. Anne Catholic Church who were on a mission trip from June 19-24, helping build the porch, assisting at a St. Vincent de Paul Society thrift store, and learning and giving life lessons.

“I learned there is community service that is needed not just in crumbling cities like Detroit or Flint,” said Eschmann, who will be a freshman at Oakland Community College this fall. “Help is needed everywhere.”

The St. Anne youth were among 100 volunteers from multiple states that participated in the Pennsylvania mission through TEAMeffort, a non-profit Christian organization that hosts camps across the U.S., as well as overseas, giving opportunity to teens to serve those in need.

This mission was the second one Eschmann, Tomas and Andrus had been on with their church group, the first being to Milwaukee a few years ago. For this mission trip, they were assigned to rebuild the porch of a local assistant pastor, who lacked money and time to do the project as he helps others.

The teens, accompanied by their adult chaperones, worked on the porch for three days, in hot and humid weather, putting new plywood sheets down, topped with 2-by-4 planks, also rebuilding steps and adding a railing. They also performed yardwork and painted.

Tomas enjoyed many things about the trip, including seeing how other people live in an area of very uneven, steep ground that made it difficult to walk or drive, but at the same time was beautiful.

“I loved how everyone was there for the same reason and everyone was really nice,” she said. “Everyone needed help, there were some homes that really needed fixes, but the people from the community offered tools to help us… It’s awesome helping others.”

Andrus had several missions on this trip— to further her relationship with God, get closer to members of the youth group, and serve a community that needed help. She believes she accomplished all she set out to do.

“I grew a closer bond with everyone I went with and we did so many projects, it definitely made a difference and I could tell by how thankful everyone was,” she said. “The guy we built the porch for, when we were done, he couldn’t stop thanking us, you could see how it affected him.”

The youth also made quite an impact at the thrift store, where they organized shelves and priced items, even perhaps giving a lesson themselves to the manager of the thrift shop, who Andrus described as bitter when she and her fellow volunteers first arrived.

“She didn’t want anything to do with us,” said Andrus. “They usually get troubled kids who are forced to come and sort things, but once she saw we were there to do this for them voluntarily and not because we were forced to, she warmed up… I’m sure she learned not to judge so quickly on a stereotype that society gives teenagers, that we don’t care about others.”

The lessons continued even as the teens concluded their trip with whitewater rafting at Ohiopyle State Park, a day of fun. Andrus said they were “terrible” at the activity, with people falling out of rafts, stuck on rocks, doubting their ability to stay the course, but like their mission the entire week they pulled together for a common goal. They began to row in sync, avoided the rocks and reached the finish line, learning everyone can use a little help sometimes and working together is the key to success.