Workcamp 2009—

Young Adults Brought Good News To Residents

Of A Small Maryland Town

By Shannon Hicks

Young adults from Newtown and Sandy Hook spent part of their summer break in Oakland, Md., earlier this month, participating in an annual workcamp experience shared by three of Newtown’s churches. The workcampers were part of a program called Newtown Ecumenical Workcamp Students (NEWS), which participates annually in national workcamps organized by Group Workcamps Foundation.

Members of Newtown Congregational Church, Newtown United Methodist Church, and St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church, along with members of Sacred Heart Church of Southbury plus seven adult chaperones — 29 people overall — left Newtown late Saturday morning on June 27 to drive the first of what they decided to turn into a two-leg trip to Oakland, Md.

With five vans and a U-Haul truck between them, the Newtown group drove to Harrisburg, Penn., where they spent the night in a church. They hit the road early Sunday morning and drove a few more hours, rolling into a town in the Allegheny Mountains by early afternoon. The rest of the week the NEWS group, along with the other groups from across the country who were converging on Oakland for the week, had accommodations in one of Oakland’s two high schools.

Returning to Newtown one week later, the NEWS group was featured on Workcamp Sunday at Newtown Congregational Church on July 5, where nearly three-quarters of the group took turns at the altar talking about their experiences. Some spoke of the town where they spent their week, others spoke of the jobs they did, and others shared their feelings about the people they met.

Oakland, Md., is one of the westernmost towns of Maryland. City-Data.com reports that as of July 2008 the town had a population of 1,844, yet it is the most populated community in Garrett County.

It is not a wealthy town. Its 2008 median household income was $34,297, its per capita was $22,142, and many of the town’s residents — 19 percent of the population — were below the poverty line.

The NEWS group, by comparison, comes from a town that boasted a median household income of $101,937 (according to the US Census Bureau 2005–07 American Community Survey), with more than 20,000 adult residents, and a poverty level of just 2.6 percent.

Oakland, said first-time workcamper Tami Corsi, “is a small quaint town, mostly ranch-style houses with an elderly community.”

“It’s very, very rural,” said Matt Cole, who was a chaperone this year after participating a number of times as a young adult volunteer. “There are houses close together in the center of town, but the further you get away from there, you can go for a few miles between houses.”

Jamie Bowers participated in workcamp for the first time this year.

“There are a lot of farms, and mountains,” he said. “Half the town is farms, and the other half is more citylike, with businesses like Walmart, Taco Bell, KFC.

“The neighborhood where I was working had some huge homes, three-story Colonials, and then there were little shacks everywhere,” he said.

The goal of Group Workcamps Foundation is to build character for those who volunteer their time, while also bonding with members of their own churches as well as youth from churches across the country. Campers wake up by 6:45, have breakfast and a morning program, and then are expected at their work site by 9 am. There is time for lunch and a midday devotional, and then work resumes until at least 3:30.

“During lunch … we got a chance to talk to our resident,” said Tami Corsi. “We could learn their story and talk about their lives. Most of the residents were very grateful for the help we were providing.”

“The crew leader can make a day longer, which sometimes we did,” said Jamie Bowers, who worked on a crew that spent its time helping an elderly homeowner. They built a six-by-eight-foot deck, which will allow the woman to put a table outdoors to further enjoy her home. The group also painted the porch ceiling, railings, shutters, and even the foundation.

“She started painting the foundation because she thought it would look good, but she just couldn’t finish it,” said Jamie. “The deck she had before was OK, but it was really small and some of the steps were a little saggy. Between the new deck and all the painting, the house looks great, like it was just finished.”

Workcamp crews are typically four to five young adults and one adult. The groups pull members together from the full workcamp pool. Returning workcamper Sarah Ferris, for instance, had people on her crew from Alabama, New Jersey, New York, and two from Virginia.

“My resident lives atop a mountain,” said Sarah. “Her family still owns 100 acres, and the view from her front porch is an amazing landscape.

“She’s land rich, but cash poor,” Sarah continued. “Her neighbor helps her with mowing, but she doesn’t have much money left.”

Sarah’s crew spent their week painting four interior rooms, with challenging ceilings.

“They had these plaster rose moldings, which were really hard to paint,” she said. The group also painted the home’s foundation, replaced the stairs to one of three porches, and repaired a porch swing.

Group Workcamp Foundation literature promised workcampers they would do more than help Oakland residents make their homes the safe and secure harbors that homes are meant to be. “The work goes far beyond the exterior of the home,” workcampers were also told. “When you visit these people, you give them hope for the future.”

Matt Cole felt that hope when he led a crew who did a number of projects for a man named Fred. A 30-foot fall from a steel girder onto concrete led to Fred breaking his back in two places. He also blew out both knees, broke his right ankle, broke one of his wrists, and his right eye actually burst out of its socket.

“I told the kids on my crew that if we didn’t get our work done, we weren’t going to be the ones to feel the repercussions. I pointed toward Fred and said, ‘You see that nice man over there? He’s the one who is going to have to live with what we don’t finish for him,’” said Matt. In less than four days’ time, the crew painted Fred’s 70-by-14-foot mobile home and an adjacent shed. They also built, with the help of a second crew, a six-by-eight-foot porch for the trailer, and replaced the steps on a smaller porch.

The 2009 NEWS team members were Chris Annes, Jessica Balsano, Jamie Bowers, Jennifer Callery, Shane Casey, Kate Cochrane, Briana Cologna, Tami Corsi, Michelle Davies, Anastasia DeMarche, Sarah Ferris, Leigh Gerety, Clark Giles, Michelle Haitz, Aquib Hossain, Kaitlyn Kakadeles, Jeff Keating, Scott Keating, Faith Mangiafico, Chris Marks, Jason Marks, Elie Mouchantat, Mike Mouchantat, Jacqui Rosa, Luke Shearin, Drew Sullivan, Maggie Sullivan, Caitlin Tefft, and Sarah Truitt. Their chaperones were Jerry Cole, Matt Cole, Shawna King, Carl Lindquist, Jeanmarie Morlath, Bob Morlath, and Vicki Truitt.

It was an exhausted group of workcampers who were back at Newtown Congregational Church on July 5, but it was also a collection of people who had learned firsthand that their lives are not as bad as they may sometimes seem. Twenty-four of the 29 members of the group made it to church that morning, representing what Matt Cole called one of the best representations of the workcamp group in recent memory.

“It’s a very sobering experience,” Mr Cole said “We went to Maryland and met some of the nicest people ever, who have lived through injuries and other issues, and you look at them and think ‘I don’t know how I could do this.’

“We take for granted our health, our nice homes, and nice cars,” he said, “It’s a very sobering thought. Not everyone lives like we do in Fairfield County.”