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July 23, 2009

Dozens gather for Mission Possible

Sharon Packard’s usually quiet front yard was bustling Thursday morning while teens and a few adults hammered and sawed.

“God has blessed me so very much this week with these kids,” said Packard, a Poplar Street resident. “It’s just wonderful.”

The team installed a wheel chair ramp at Packard’s house so she would not longer have to leave her electric mobility scooter sitting outside. The group also cleaned and weeded her yard, among other chores.

The project was among 13 the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer has done this week as part of its Mission Possible program, which wraps up today.

Teams helped by repairing houses, building wheel chair ramps, landscaping, doing yard work and other chores that the homeowners could not do themselves.

“This is awesome. It’s a great feeling helping people out,” said 16-year-old volunteer Erika Rahe, as she placed a power saw on the ramp she was helping build.

Rahe, who lives near Cincinnati, was among 47 teens and adults from around the Midwest who participated in the mission. Participants are members of affiliate churches of the Youth Ministries of Lutheran Church Missourie Synod.

“These are kids that give up a week of their summer instead of going to the pool,” site leader Greg Kuhlman said.

Before the project began, the United Way of Howard County, Samaritan Caregivers and Area 5 Agency on Aging and Community Services forwarded a list of area residents who need work done on their homes, said project coordinator Kathy Tucker.

Tucker said she then selects projects from the list that would fit the Mission Possible goals.

“The list was bigger than we could handle,” she said. “I picked the ones that we could do with kids.”

The teams began working Monday on some projects that took one or two days and others that were week-long, such as Packard’s house. All the projects should finish on-schedule today.

“I was a little worried with the rain [Wednesday],” Kuhlman said, “but the kids didn’t even blink an eye.”

Aside from building ramps and doing yard work, some teams did some needed structural work for the houses.

At Ruth Renner’s house on Havens Street, the adults on the team fixed a hole that developed in the corner of Renner’s living room.

Site leader Jason Gaunt said some bad gutters caused water damage to eat away at the wall causing the hole in the room in which Renner, 89, is mostly restricted to living.

Since the hole developed, mice have been able to get into Renner’s home, she said.

“I’ll be tickled to death to have it done,” she said.

When the workers finished at the sites each day, they would then head back to the church where they would have prayer and Bible study. After dinner, the church planned activities for them such as swimming and Mission Possible Olympics.

The project will end with a potluck dinner for all the workers, homeowners and hundreds of other staff members and families who helped.

“It’s a huge support, probably 200 or 300 families,” Tucker said. “You couldn’t do it without that.”

This was the seventh year the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer had Mission Possible.

The church began the project in 2000. It does it two years in a row, with the third year off so the church can attend a national synodical project.

• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at (765) 454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.

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