Baptists harvest ‘hope’ in Perry County

Nearly 125 volunteers from five Alabama Baptist churches worked in a volunteer project at Uniontown and Marion June 11–15, as part of “Sowing Seeds of Hope,” a partnership between the people of Perry County and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) of Alabama.
   
“This week is by far the largest volunteer project we’ve attempted in the ‘Sowing Seeds of Hope’ partnership,” said Mart Gray, coordinator of Alabama CBF who is co-chair of the faith-based initiative in Perry County.
   
Gray emphasized, however, that “Sowing Seeds of Hope” is not just a volunteer project.
“It is a movement in the hearts of the people to bring about change in the life of the community.”
   
He added that the attitudes and actions of the volunteers brought credibility to the movement. About 105 volunteers were involved in painting, re-roofing, and repairing 11 houses in Uniontown owned by local residents who agreed to spend 10 hours in “sweat equity.” One homeowner who was physically unable to work contributed $50 instead of “sweat equity.”
   
Another 20 volunteers were involved in a literacy project which included giving away free books to elementary school students and building bookcases for two Perry County elementary schools.
   
The volunteers gave away about 250 new books and 1,000 used books to 250 children in Uniontown and Marion, according to  Darlene Berry of First Baptist Church, Huntsville. Most of the new books were purchased for 25 cents each with a grant from Wal-Mart.
   
“It was so exciting to see the faces of these children when they received their books, and to know that they would ask their parents to read a book to them at home that night,” said Mark Wilson, a graduate student at Auburn University and summer literacy intern for “Sowing Seeds of Hope.”
   
Wilson also helped organize volunteers to build 50 bookcases for classrooms in the public elementary schools in Marion and Uniontown. John Heard, assistant superintendent of Perry County schools, expressed thanks to “Sowing Seeds of Hope” for providing the bookcases. He explained that as part of the Alabama Reading Initiative, all public schools are required to have a library in each classroom, but the two Perry County elementary schools did not have the money to buy bookcases.
   
The biggest project of the week was remodeling and rebuilding 11 dilapidated houses in Uniontown, most of them owned by families who could not afford to repair them. CBF of Alabama raised about $18,000 to pay for building materials bought locally to help the Perry County economy.
   
Construction volunteers came from Grace Baptist Church, Oxford; Pintlala Baptist Church, Pintlala; and from three churces in the Huntsville area: Mount Zion Baptist Church, First Baptist Church of Huntsville and First Baptist Church of New Hope.
   
“We put new roofs on three of the houses, replaced a lot of rotten wood and windows, and scraped and painted all 11 houses,”  said Rowe Smith, a member of Mount Zion who has been on 19 previous “World Changers” mission trips as a construction volunteer.
   
Mayor Edward Daniel of Marion, who co-chairs the faith-based initiative with Gray, said the volunteers have been busy “sowing, cultivating and planting” better relationships between blacks and whites in Perry County.
   
He said “Sowing Seeds of Hope” has enabled Perry County to receive a $91,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve health care services in the county which has no hospital.  
   
They also applied for a $400,000 grant from the federal HUD and USDA offices to build a child development and job skill training center, and a $2.5 million grant from HUD to build a 24-unit senior citizens housing facility.
   
The night before the volunteers completed their work, about 125 people evenly divided between Uniontown residents and volunteeers, met at First Missionary Baptist Church to celebrate what was accomplished.
   
“Words cannot express how much we deeply appreciate what you have done,” said Anthony Trimble, pastor of the church established in 1867 after the Civil War.
   
Alice Brown, church member and one of the homeowners whose house was refurbished, praised the volunteers for “doing what we all need to do — love each other. … This has been a glorious week.”
   
In a sermon during the celebration, Bill Morris, retired pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Huntsville, said he did not think there was a single person who came “for any reason other than that they love God and love God’s people, and they wanted to do something to help others.”
   
Morris, a diabetic, visited each of the 11 refurbished homes in a wheelchair. He gave each homeowner a Bible and told members of the congregation: “Our skin is a different color, but there is a relationship between us that is based on the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
   
At the conclusion, the volunteers and Uniontown residents joined hands raised above their heads and sang, “What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms.”