NORTH FERRISBURGH — North Ferrisburgh United Methodist Church sent fourteen youth and adults on the church’s ninth service Mission trip with United Methodist Reach Out Action by Youth (U.M. ARMY). The youth did everything from yard work to painting to stair and ramp construction for low-income residents of Claremont, N.H. The people these missions serve do not have the funds to have these services done any other way.
The participants this year were teens Arielle Dumont, Vincent Cataloni, Jonathan DeVos, Samantha Hallock, Munro McLaren, Rhode Miguel, Olivia Paine, Erich Reitz and Josias Salomao, college student Matt Becker, and adults Clare Connor, Rob McKay and Pastor Kim Hornung-Marcy. No one wanted the week to end. It was so much fun and very meaningful.
The participants bring their own tools, cover their own food and program costs. The program at times purchases all the supplies for the projects.
Clients speak of how moved they are that the youth have given up their cell phones for the whole week, so they can instead make friends with each other and with the people they are serving.
This is U.M. ARMY’s 40th year as an organization. Through 2017, teams of youth and adults in many southern states and in New England have seen:
•  1,230 mission weeks of service.
•  4,750 participating churches.
•  95,000 individual participants.
•  39,800 work sites.
This is the ninth year that the North Ferrisburgh United Methodist Church has been involved in the Claremont project. This year 48 teens and adults from seven New England churches were involved and 23 work sites were completed. Claremont was one of five weeks of service offered in New England.