You may have seen many people working on roofs, painting, or replacing windows in Comanche County this past week. As you take a closer look you seem to notice that most of the workers are mainly youth, and a couple adults working alongside them. You may ask why, and how in the world did you get todays’ youth outside and working without staring down at their phones. Well, it is quite simple, they paid to volunteered a week out of their year to give back to the community and allow their actions to show the love of Christ.
Every year in June for a full week a project called Community Rehab is hosted in Comanche county to fix up houses for families that are unable to afford repair. Community Rehab was founded in 2000 by a group of citizens who saw a great need in the area and knew they could pool their resources to give back. Each year the leaders of the project accepts applications from numerous home owners across Comanche county. Each of the applications is reviewed and prayed over, then the houses are chosen. The amount of houses chosen vary each year depending on the number of volunteers.
Volunteers come from all over the United States to help with this project, mostly church youth groups. The volunteers are split up into crews and are assigned a house to work on during the week repairing anything that is in desperate need of improvement. The crews start working bright and early Monday morning and finish Friday afternoon. Each night the volunteers stay at Comanche High School where a meal is provided and a church service held.
This year marks the 17th year of Community Rehab and the 250th house to be repaired. The event is completely worked by volunteers. There are adults that take off a week from work and youth that give up a week out of their summers to give back and show the love of Christ to the community.
Community Rehab is an event that is life changing to many people. As a volunteer and a recipient of the project I have experienced both aspects of the project. Growing up in church I attended all the youth events I possibly could, Community Rehab being my favorite. It was a way for me to give back to the community that has given to my family and me, as well as a life changing moment when I met Christ my first year volunteering. Being a recipient of the project is also an impactful experience. It has shown me that in a world where our humanity is constantly being painted in a negative light, there are still many positive experiences to be had if you look in the right places.
I will continue attending Community Rehab each year giving back to the community to show others the love of Christ through my actions. Maybe if we all sought a way to give back to our communities and show the love of Christ to others the world wouldn’t be such a conflicted place.
