Jesse Lee Church in Ridgefield Plans Summer Service Project

RIDGEFIELD, CT — The Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church will be holding an information session to provide details on their summer volunteer home-repair Appalachia Service Project on Jan. 23.

The no-obligation meeting will introduce students and their parents – and any other interested adults – to the Appalachia Service Project overall, and especially to the developing plan for Jesse Lee ASP’s mission trip, set for June 27-July 5.

ASP is a national Christian volunteer organization founded by Rev. Glenn "Tex" Evans, a Methodist minister, in 1969. Since then, some 437,000 volunteers from across the nation have participated in weeklong mission trips to make more than 19,000 homes in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina "warmer, safer and drier."

This is the 37th year for Jesse Lee ASP, which is the second-largest local ASP organization in the U.S. Last summer, 281 local students and adults worked to restore the homes of folks in four counties in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Jesse Lee ASP is open to anyone who will have completed their freshman year of high school. Adults are encouraged to volunteer – both those who have teens participating and those who do not. Participants need not be a member of Jesse Lee or any church, live in Ridgefield, or be an expert with a hammer to volunteer. Basic construction skills and safety rules are taught in training sessions prior to going on ASP.

The information session will start at 7:30 p.m. in the Carriage House at Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church, 207 Main Street.