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"God's Servants" will again be at work in the community this summer as First Church gears up for TRANSFORM, which will run Aug. 5 through Aug. 9.
TRANSFORM, based at First Church on Market Street, is a "city-wide mission experience where we seek to serve those in need, build relationships, and bless our community through construction projects and work with local nonprofits," per information on the group's website.
"The program has been going officially for 10 years -- with a year off for COVID -- but the church has had a similar program for 15 years," according to Ben Conrad, the church's director of connections.
"Last year, we had 117 different volunteers, which is a little bit over what we normally do. It's been about 100 to 160 per year. But the program's been growing, which is great because the need is still there. So it's about 170 to 175 volunteers that we expect again this year. And that's hopefully consistent and will continue to grow as well," Conrad said.
The church is calling everyone in the community who would like to help during that week -- no special skills are needed.
"There's a whole lot of different responsibilities that need to be done," Conrad explained.
"There are a lot of folks who would need to be able to be outside and swing a hammer and lift heavy brush, that kind of thing. But there's also ways to serve, like by cooking food for the people that we're visiting or for our volunteers. But there's also jobs that are often less strenuous or even inside, like organizing or cleaning or painting. These are things that require maybe not quite as much energy or capability to do. So there's really a job for everyone," he said.
Anyone who has a willing heart to serve is welcome to sign up to work, Conrad stressed.
"I want to just emphasize that we would really love to see this to not be a First Church thing. We don't really want it to be something where it's our church helping others, we want it to be Lycoming County and Williamsport helping Lycoming County and Williamsport," Conrad said.
"We want it to be something where we are hosts but we want to help people connect with their community and care for their community and kind of start breaking down some of the challenges of meeting new people and volunteering and going out and helping others is what we want the program to be about," he said.
"So other churches, people from organizations, businesses, whoever wants to come and volunteer, we would love the help of their participation," he added.
The only thing the church asks is that people who are planning to help register so that they know how much help they will have. And it doesn't have to be for the whole week.
"We've been partnering with other organizations like Lycoming College for the past couple years. They'll send a team from their organization to come and volunteer with us for a day or two days, and that counts as their service hours as well. But that's a way for them to get out in the community in a way that they wouldn't otherwise," he said, adding, "but anyone can volunteer."
Homeowners or nonprofits who would like help from the TRANSFORM group can also register online.
Although they do large and small jobs, there are certain jobs that they will not take on, such as putting a roof on a structure, because of the skill level needed and the liability.
"What we end up doing is minor carpentry. We fix a lot of porches and decks and steps, that kind of thing. We do drywall and we do painting. For Sojourner Truth Ministries, we basically have redone the entire interior of one of those, studding it out, putting up the drywall, plastering, painting, all that kind of thing," Conrad said.
"A lot of what we do is just repainting or weatherizing. We replace a few screen doors, that kind of thing, a lot of landscaping, and just kind of a lot of the care that if you're not physically capable of caring for your property over a couple of months, you know, that can build up and it takes a lot to take it back down to a manageable place. And so we'll come in and do a lot of landscaping for folks that aren't able to physically or financially keep up with it," he said.
The work is done at no cost to the nonprofit or homeowner. They can help to provide the necessary materials, if they are able, but that's not "mandated," Conrad said.
"They just indicate on their request whether or not they're able to offer materials and if they can't offer materials, then we buy the materials for them if we can," he added.
There is also an opportunity for youth to serve in the program.
"We've had our youth and some other church youth groups participate in the past.
We're kind of opening up to anyone in the community who's able to join this year in case of let's say there's some high schoolers who would really love to partake or maybe their parents are getting involved, but they don't have a place to go. So there's a place for us to kind of open it up to everyone who would want to participate who's maybe in the high school grade level," Conrad said.
The youth program this year features a time for participants to stay over at a lock-in Monday night of TRANSFORM week and just kind of hang out, Conrad explained.
"So you work during the day and then you have an evening time together and I think a lot of encouragement towards serving together throughout the week," he said.
The homeowners and nonprofits are benefitting from having someone give them that bit of help they might not otherwise receive, but what about the volunteers? What can they expect?
"Well, there's two things. I'll answer first because we're a church. I'll just be very open about what we believe. So there's one thing from the Christian standpoint that we really believe that this is part of how life is supposed to be. You're supposed to be the kind of person that helps your neighbor out. You're supposed to serve others, especially if there are folks who are underprivileged or they're physically unable or not strong to take care of these things themselves. The Christian ethic is supposed to be finding people who may be disadvantaged and being there to support them...we're stronger together as a community. Also in nature, we feel like we live in a better world and we feel like we're contributing to something bigger than ourselves when we partake in volunteerism like this," he said.
"There have been studies that psychologists have done that have shown that trust is developed and relationship is developed when you do this but more of a spiritual thing, it is how love grows. If we want to be in a community that loves one another and that is safe, and that takes care of each other, these are the sorts of things that essentially put your money where your mouth is, like you can just complain that you live in an unsafe neighborhood and never do anything about to get go out and make relationships and you can help make things better. This is one of those ways that you can invest in the people around you and you can invest in the city that you love and you want to care for.
There is also the possibility that people will be empowered to take the TRANSFORM model of service beyond the one week during the summer.
"I think there's a way to empower people to do that. It's hard to kind of just randomly one day show up and knock on the neighbor's door be like hey, can I mow your lawn? Right, there's some weirdness to that. But this is a program that is developed to really empower people to have an avenue to give back, to volunteer, to experience relationships in different ways, to really invest in the people around them and kind of make the community that they want to be a part of.
Visit firstchurch.cc/transform/ to register to volunteer on the TRANSFORM team or to sign up to have a project done at your home or nonprofit. The group usually does 45 projects each year.