Portsmouth Abbey Students to Help West Virginian Coalminers, Families during Spring Break

While most students will spend a week of fun in the sun during spring break, approximately 22 students from the Portsmouth Abbey School will instead head down to the coal-mining town of Welch, WV, this Saturday to help families in need.

“We’ve been doing this since about 1992 with a goal to help unfortunate families put a roof on top of their head,” said Clarence Chenoweth, dean of students at the Portsmouth Abbey School. “West Virginia has had a lot of problems, all starting when the coal mining industry started to crumble. Life down there is hard and there are many families down there that don’t even have indoor plumbing.”
 
Getting students excited for this service trip is not a difficult task.

“We have many students who are coming for their second or third time and some even come back when they get out of college to go down and chaperone,” said Paul Jestings, director of operations and project management at the school. “These are really hard and long days with very basic accommodations. I started doing it because it is amazing to see how hard these kids work and how badly they want to see each project through.

"Most the students that come down here for the first time have never swung a hammer in their lives, but it's incredible to see them rise to the occasion.”
 
The service trip, which has been in the running for almost 20 years, has seen a fair share of remarkable stories that students hold as memories.

“I remember one year, it was one retired miner’s birthday and he had no family to celebrate with,” said Jestings. “The students brought him some food and a cake and sang 'Happy Birthday' to him on the porch. The man was in tears and the students were so emotionally touched.”
 
Another year, a woman had her children taken away by child services because she didn’t have proper stairs going up to her house, which posed as a fire hazard. One of the teams worked hard everyday and, by the end of the week, had built her stairs and a porch in the front and back of her home, which allowed for her children to come home.

“It is  such a tough place that people are in down here because there is so much they want to do to better their lives and lives of their families, but they don’t have the means to do it,” said Chenoweth.
 
As for this year, the tasks to be completed will be unknown until right before the trip, but there is no question that the students will learn a lot by the time they get back to Rhode Island.

“You learn so much from this experience; it’s the benefit of helping people, the benefit of learning a new trade, the benefit of appreciating what you have,” said Jestings. “It is one interesting adventure, that is for sure.”