Ira Stringfellow, 72, has dealt with a makeshift roof since Hurricane Katrina five years ago; after this past week, however, she now has a new roof, fully painted and free of charge.

    This week, Meridian was host to 200 youth and adults who came from all over the country simply to fix up homes and lend a helping hand to those in need through the organization World Changers.

    “The purpose of World Changers is for teenagers and adults to share God’s love by providing free labor to communities in need,” World Changers’ 2010 press release said. “World Changers seeks to change the world of a resident by demonstrating a very practical kind of care and concern. We do not want to be nameless and faceless workers who do a job, but new friends who have come to help.”

    According to World Changers, so far this summer, more than 23,000 volunteers have been working 36 hours per project in 30 different states across the country, two areas in Puerto Rico and a few more in Canada.

    The ministry was born in the summer of 1990 in Briceville, Tenn. One week, 137 volunteers, nine houses and 20 years later, World Changers is still going strong.

    “Since then, over 260,000 student volunteers have renovated more than 19,500 homes in some 900 communities worldwide,” according to a statement in the press release.

    This week, 200 student and adult volunteers were spread out among 14 worksites in Meridian. Welcomed and hosted by Calvary Baptist Church, the crews were at their worksites by around 7 a.m. every day and usually did not leave until 4 p.m.

    The people that are involved with World Changers have given up anywhere from one week to the entire summer to serve communities. The youth range from middle school to college aged, and all have similar reasons for taking part in this experience.

    “I just wanted to witness to people because I’ve never really gotten to do that before,” Abby Wallace, 12, of Arkansas said.

    “I enjoy helping the community,” Courtney Folsom, 14, of Georgia said. “In my town I’m always really busy with sports and school and there are a couple of places to help, but there aren’t any activities set up to help. I just thought it was my turn to give back to the community, and doing this especially is a way of sharing God’s message and working.”

    Upon their arrival in Meridian, the students were split into their work groups. Youth groups do not stay together, and this is to allow the youth to meet and work with others from around the country. Not only are they leaving their comfort zones to work on houses for people they have never met, but they are also opening themselves up and trusting new people to come together for a common goal.

    “The people are here for the same reason: either to help people find Christ and help people in need, or to find Christ for themselves,” Remington Henderson, 16, of Texas said.

    The crew that these students worked with spent all week on Stringfellow’s roof, tearing apart the old boards that were pretending to be a ceiling, and installing a new one that will get the job done. However, it was not enough to just fix the roof, they wanted to make it look good too, so they finished the project off with a nice paint job.

    Angela Abbamonte, 21, of Georgia, has been on staff for World Changers for the past two years. She helped and oversaw the different crews throughout the week.

    “It’s great being able to do World Changers all summer long and be able to hang out with the students and see different communities being impacted by us,” Abbamonte said.

    These volunteers are not out to hit anyone over the head with the Bible or simply do a good deed, Abbamonte said they are working to show “the practical love of Christ.”

    “It is so exciting to get to see communities and homeowners get a fresh look to their house, and it’s great to see the students interacting with them,” Abbamonte said. “The reason they do it is because they feel the love of Christ, and they want to show that to the community in a practical way.”

    For many of the students, this is their first experience in the missions field. However, for a few of the ones that have been overseas, they have discovered that this hit home a little harder.

    Tyler Edwards, 14, of Georgia, went on a missions trip to Costa Rica not too long ago, and he said “You go to Costa Rica, and it’s a whole different country so you don’t really think that much of it. When you come to a place like this in your own country, you see what’s going on, and it changes your point of view.”

    “It is very easy to glamorize going overseas or going to a different culture,” Abbamonte said. “I believe that those are important endeavors, but it’s also important to look around the corner or down the street and see the need that is right in front of us. That is one of the advantages of World Changers — we get to see what is going on in our communities, right here in the United States. I think that it really opens the eyes of a lot of students that come.”

    We have all been told that when you give you receive much more, and for these volunteers that has become a reality in the past week. The experience opened their eyes and made them much more grateful for what they have. Despite the heat, most of the students cannot wait to participate in World Changers again next year.