CrossRoads Church at Westfield is bringing 200 to 300 high school students to Westfield this summer for a week to provide free home repair for those in need. This program is being offered in partnership with Group Mission Trips, a youth mission organization based in Ft. Collins, Colo., and has a long history.
CrossRoads is seeking applications from any who need home repairs. Applications are due by April 1, 2021.
Building or repairing wheelchair ramps, constructing decks, doing mobile home skirting, or painting the exterior of homes are the home repair services being offered for free this summer. This program is geared primarily toward older adults, veterans, and any low-income families who live in the community and own their own homes.
“The qualification is very simple,” said Eric Lohe, who is the lead pastor of CrossRoads Church at Westfield. “If you are in need of housing repair so you can live in your house, we want to help. We are not checking your bank statements or any of that. Once you submit an application, we have people from our congregation and the community who will go assess the needed repairs and determine if we have the skills and people power to meet the need.”
“To help people stay in their homes is the reason for doing the home repairs,” Lohe told the Reporter. “This summer from June 21-25 we are going to have up to 300 high school kids, church kids, and their adult leaders come into the Westfield community, to live at Westfield Middle School, and go out in smaller groups of six people to serve. They will go to 35 to 45 home sites where each of those small groups will spend a week doing repairs for those people in need.”
Applications are available both as an online form at this link and in a downloadable PDF format and are due by April 1, 2021.
“Group Mission Trips goes to 20 to 25 communities in the United States each summer and does a week-long youth mission home repair camp,” Lohe explained. “I have been attending these camps since 2005 working as staff and a volunteer. Our church has sent a number of students and adults to these work camps.”
The current focus toward this goal is the free home repair program coming to Westfield, Noblesville and northern Hamilton County this summer.
“Since folks in our church are in Westfield, Noblesville, Cicero, and Sheridan, we decided for this round of doing this camp we were going to focus in those four communities,” Lohe said. “This effort is one of four church initiatives called, ‘For Our Neighbor.’ We are trying to meet, know, enjoy, and serve the needs of our local neighbors.”
CrossRoads wants to both be good neighbors and also involve others in helping community neighbors.
“In addition to seeking work group sites, we are also seeking businesses or service organizations to be a part of this,” Lohe said. “If a Rotary Club asks, ‘What can we do?’ I’d say, ‘The kids come back really hungry in the afternoons. Could you cook up some hot dogs and have them available when the kids come back from camp?’ Or a business could take out popsicles to a group or to a couple work sites during the week to say, ‘Thank you. We’re glad you are here and thanks for what you are doing.’ It is not just about us as a church trying to do something for our neighbor, it’s also about helping people be the best neighbors we can be.”
If you would like to help, email forourneighborinfo@gmail.com or call Eric Lohe at (317) 402-6574.
If you need home repairs and think you may qualify, click here to fill out an online application or click here to download a PDF copy.
Go to ForOurNeighbor.Life for more information on all of the Westfield CrossRoads Church “For Our Neighbor” community outreach programs.