THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 12, 1996 TAG: 9609110183
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: THUMBS UP!
SOURCE: KATHRYN DARLING, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 93 lines
WHEN KENT HASKETT was in Petersburg last month, he just had to visit 80-year-old widow Sarah Greene.
The first thing he did was ask to see her bathroom.
Haskett met Greene last summer when he brought members of the Virginia Heights Baptist Church youth group to volunteer at Tri-Cities Work Camps, a Petersburg-based ministry that repairs the homes of elderly and low-income residents.
A supervisor in the program, Haskett had been called to the home at 11 a.m. when the team of five teens and an adult discovered that replacing the bathroom floor was too big a job for them. They had pulled up the floor and toilet, and discovered the joist beneath the toilet needed to be replaced.
``It was a mess,'' Haskett said.
Following the rules of the program, the work crew had to leave at its scheduled departure time of 3 p.m. But Haskett kept working - it was the only bathroom in the house. Two of the teens returned to help him, and the three worked until they finished the job - at midnight. They laid down boards so the bathroom could be used that night. The next day, they continued replacing the joists, put in a new floor and laid down linoleum.
``I was so glad to get done what I did get done,'' Greene said. The floor was ``weak and rotten, and it had to come up.''
The floor now is covered with a bluish white linoleum that matches the blue tile on her walls, she said.
Haskett went back to the house this summer to make sure the floor had held up. He examined the work, jumping up and down to test the floor, and declared it sturdy.
For the last three years, Haskett, 46, his daughter, Meridith, 18, and youth from their church have joined work camps in Petersburg. Haskett said he believes in giving of yourself and expecting nothing in return.
The camp, which is run by Connie Romaine, a former Petersburg youth director, hosts teens 14 to 18 years old at two sessions each summer.
This year, 275 teens and their chaperones paid $195 to attend one of the weeklong ecumenical camps and helped repair 41 homes. The students ``camped out'' at a Catholic high school in Petersburg, sleeping on the floor in classrooms, and eating and meeting in the gymnasium.
The teens, who attended basic-skills workshops in the month before the camp, were put into teams of six the first day of the program. Each team was assigned to a house for the week and attended four more mini-workshops, one on safety and the rest are related specifically to their job site.
The teens worked on a variety of projects. They tore down walls, hung sheet rock, repainted rooms and exteriors, replaced floors, put down linoleum, and rebuilt porches and stairs.
Most of the work sites were completed in five days, but some houses required such extensive work that a team from both camps worked on them.
Each summer, Haskett, who lives in the Landsdale area of Norfolk, has taken vacation from his job as a liaison representative in the engineering department at Newport News Shipbuilding to attend both sessions, and this year he was joined in the second session by Meridith.
She had attended the first session as a camper, but in the second session, Meridith, who graduated from Norfolk Christian High School in June, was an adult-in-training, a junior staff member.
``I was a gopher,'' she said. If a team ran out of supplies or needed another tool, she would get beeped and take what was needed to them. She also delivered lunches and supported and encouraged the teams, even acting as a counselor at times. But ``I did run a lot of errands,'' she said.
Haskett said he is excited that Meridith is interested in becoming a staff member. He would like to start a work camp in Norfolk, and said he could use her knowledge of the ins and outs to help organize it.
But starting a work camp in Norfolk will take more than the Hasketts' expertise and willpower. It will take the cooperation of the whole community - government, businesses and residents - to make such a program succeed, Haskett said.
In Petersburg, the campers' fees pay for the supplies and tools, but businesses and contractors give the ministry wholesale prices on what they buy. Phone companies loan them cellular phones and beepers. Other businesses like law firms, banks and real estate companies, as well as civic groups and religious organizations, commit to providing lunch to a work site team for a week. Women's groups and churches bake snacks for the teens, Romaine said.
The city of Petersburg is also an active participant. Throughout the year, government agencies, such as social services and the police, send referrals for the program, Romaine said.
Those same volunteer services will need to be duplicated in Norfolk. It will take the community's involvement to solve a number of logistical problems, Haskett said.
Building supplies have to be stored as they are acquired throughout the year, and Haskett said he would need to find a place to house, feed and entertain the teens and their chaperones. MEMO: If you know someone whom you feel is deserving of a Thumbs Up!
feature, call Kathryn Darling at 446-2286. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by CANDICE C. CUSIC
Kent Haskett and his daughter, Meridith, and youth from their church
repaired homes in Petersburg. by CNB