Community has always been one of the main pillars of the PV volunteers and this past Friday was all about community. The volunteers spent the day wrapping up some loose ends, visiting people in the county, setting up the tool room and finally closing the week with a community dinner.

Since we began staying at Mullens United Methodist we have wrapped up each volunteer week by hosting a dinner for the church community and the wider community as a thank you for welcoming us. This year was the biggest dinner to date, welcoming 45 people! Volunteers, along with a HUGE assist from Donna, created a feast for all. One of the guests was one of the home owners we worked for during the week and she brought a bouquet of roses for the volunteers. She asked Dan to present each volunteer with a rose from the bouquet.

Much like the night, the week was a wonderful success. Thank you to the volunteers who spent their week in the hot weather, sleeping on air mattress on the floor, giving their heart and soul to help others. You all did tremendous work! As we said at the beginning of the week, the PV program IS the volunteers. Extra special shout-out to Tricia for guiding the crew during the week and helping everything run smoothly.

And finally, thank you to Mullens Methodist Church, and especially to Donna, for allowing us to call your beautiful church home for the week. You have made us feel so welcome and part of your community.

It was another hot one today, but there was work to be done! Volunteers went back to the site in Oceana to complete the porch roof and fix the railing. There is something about PVs and roofs, they go together like peanut butter and jelly, another PV tradition. It turned out beautifully and the home owner was thrilled.

Volunteers also went back to the site in Herndon to finish staining the deck and to finish fixing the door. From the pictures you can see how beautiful it looked when it was done and how happy the home owner was. The volunteers had a wonderful time getting to know her and spend time with her the last couple of days.

Since the week is getting close to end, dinner tonight was they ol’traditional clean out the the refrigerator leftover night. What is not to like about enjoying food you enjoyed the first time! Reflection tonight was inspired by a message sent down to the volunteers from our very own PV Patti with an Irish ballad about walking alongside people in their journeys, sometimes literally and sometimes in spirit. This week the volunteers have walked alongside those they have met and with each other, as each of you who are reading their stories are walking with them and so many that have gone before them.

First of all, thank you to all that are following along with the group, commenting, liking, etc. It makes the group feel a part of a larger group. The PV family is strong!

Today the volunteers went back to the site in Oceana where they installed the door yesterday to put a roof over the existing landing by the door. This will help tremendously when there is snow and ice to make a safe place to exit, as well as a cool place to pull up a chair on a sunny hot day to get out to of the sun.

The rest of the group went to a new site in Herndon. Today they spent time sanding a large porch that will be stained tomorrow. Some work was also done on a door to make it close more securely. Unfortunately for them, there was no shade available on the porch, making for a hot, sweaty day. They got a lot done, but will be returning tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was chili, honey cornbread and salad. Served along with the dinner was canned pickles and canned homemade salsa from the home owner in Herndon. It rounded out a wonderful feast. The evenings reflection was centered around Joan of Arc, tying in her willingness and wanting to do good things for anyone who needed the help, often people others overlooked. The sharing portion of reflection brought back the old tried and true “new and good.” Always a wonderful way to find the positives in any given day.

Another warm, but beautiful day greeted the volunteers today. Unlike yesterday when everyone went to the same site, today they broke up into two different groups. One group went back to the Monday’s site to put some finishing touches in the room the paneling was installed, and to stain a deck to keep it safe from the weather. The group finished up all they planned to and had a wonderful time with the homeowner as well.

The other group of PVs went to a new site in Oceana where they were tasked with replacing a door. Of course that sounds straightforward, which of course it wasn’t. The door that was removed was replaced with a door that was close in size, but not the same size.

After sites the volunteers had guests for dinner, Mullens own Donna and Mike. They learned a bunch of new things about Mullens while they ate a chicken cast iron one pan dish. The evening concluded with a reflection on judgements, or more specifically, trying not to judge.

The volunteers had their first day at a home repair site today. After loading up the cars they headed out through the mountains to Maben. They task at hand for the volunteers was twofold: to paint a kitchen and it’s cabinets, and in another room, repair a wall that was damaged by a leaking roof by removing the the damaged parts, rebuilding the wall and putting paneling over the top. By the end of the day the kitchen was all painted and the wall was repaired and looked great.

Food shopping was done for the rest of the week after sites, so the group decided to go out to dinner so no one would have to cook. Sounds like they had a great meal. After dinner they came back and gathered for reflection and to talk about the tomorrow.

It has been a busy couple of days for the PVs in West Virginia. There was setting up, checking out sites and the arrivals of the crew. By all accounts they have a great week ahead of them. With St. Vincent dePaul shutting it’s doors early this year, we are collaborating with the volunteer group from Pittsburgh who comes earlier in the in the summer. They have the time, funding and personnel to do some big jobs, leaving us the small, but important projects, which have always been the PVs bread and butter.

After arriving and settling in, the volunteers gathered for their first communal meal, spaghetti and meatballs, also courtesy of the Pittsburgh group. This first meal together really officially begins the PV experience…..

After dinner and talking about the week ahead, the volunteers wrapped up the evening, as always with commissioning. Many things have changed over the years, but somethings will always be a part of the PVs.

After meetings and discussions this winter, it was decided to keep the PVs going as long as there is money and interest in volunteering. This new effort is 100% volunteer run and organized. The PVs have always been volunteer driven, but this now is truly completely volunteer led. The first effort under the new model is a service week in Wyoming County, WV, the PVs “summer home” since 1998.

The PVs will arrive on Sunday July 7th and spend the week calling Mullens United Methodist Church their home as they work throughout the county. We will try and make daily updates here and on the PVs social media accounts to keep you all in the loop. We hope you will keep the volunteers in thoughts in a special way next week.

The volunteers wrapped up their week with quite an eventful final day. They were able to finish painting the back porch to wrap up that site (yay!). They installed the shower doors at the bathroom site (yay again!) and actually went to a third site to do a few odds and ends like tightening fan blades and getting an outlet to work again. While they were small things, the home owner was thrilled!

After the sites, the volunteers returned back to the church to begin to prepare to host a community dinner. The community dinner was a tradition the PVs started the first year we stayed at Mullens United Methodist church. We invite any and all would like to share a meal to come. Well this year proved to be a it challenging. In the midst of preparing the meal, Mullens lost power. Luckily with the help of someone with a generator the rest of the food was cooked, and the help of a bunch of candles the church was lit and the meal could go on. This gathering on the final night has become a highlight for the volunteers. The power ended up coming back on around 11pm, so at least in the morning when people were packing up to leave they had light.

We are so thankful for the volunteers who spent the week in WV and carried on the PV tradition. The presence of the PVs as a whole spans not only the 50 years in total, but this was the 25th year in Wyoming County. It is a presence that has a lasting legacy. The site this summer that we did the work in the bathroom had a connection to PVs serving more than 21 years ago. When Tricia and Dan checked the site out at the beginning of the week they were talking to the home owner. She was mentioning how there were fewer volunteer groups coming in and doing work. She told them a group came in and worked on her dad’s house after the flood, the “passionate volunteers” and the family had such a positive experience with them and that she missed them. Of course Dan and Tricia got excited and said “that’s us!” What a great full circle moment and example of the presence of the PVs.

Thank you Tricia, Logan, Dan, Lucy, Bob, Bernie, Ed, Peggy and our newest PV Sue for representing the PVs with grace and love this week. Thank you also to Arnie and Kathy and St. Vincent dePaul for your support of the the program this week and always. And lastly a special thank you to Donna and the Mullens United Methodist community for opening up your doors to us and giving us a wonderful place to call home. It takes a village to keep this program going.

Another great day for the volunteers. It is hard to believe it is already Thursday. Wonderful progress was made at both sites today. At the porch site, the front porch was given a fresh coat of paint while the back porch was sanded in preparation for painting. The volunteer also did a few little items around the house that the homeowner asked if she could get help with. In the pictures below you can see a before and after of the beautiful porch.

The other site also made great progress today. The toilet, sink and shower were installed, but we are still waiting for the doors to the shower. They are supposed to arrive by tomorrow so we can put them in and everything should be working. We were hoping to get to the flooring that the owner already had, but unfortunately we won’t have enough time to install that.

For any of you who have ever volunteered with the PVs, you will be happy to know the tradition of breakfast for dinner continued tonight. All the guys prepared the dinner for the group, so of course the gals did the cleanup.

For reflection tonight Bernie shared about her prayer shawl ministry she does with her church back home and then ask the community to share how God showed themselves to us and/or how God was shown through us.

After dinner the volunteers celebrated the big 5-0 anniversary the PVs are celebrating this year with decorations and in true PV fashion a DQ ice cream cake decorated for the occasion. There is a picture below of the group with the cake that was taken by a drone that a volunteer brought down….. aren’t the PVs getting fancy. No more Jenny and Jill with 20 cameras like the olden days.

PVs went back to both their sites today. At the porch site they were able to attach the newly made gate which opened and closed perfectly! They were also able to fix the steps that needed repair and with the help of an electric sander and one very dedicated young volunteer, sanded the whole porch so it will be ready to paint tomorrow. This site is out in the Sunday and gets very hot by the afternoon, so they called it an early day.

The bathroom site continued to move along. Re-plumbing an entire room and basically redoing everything in it, takes a bit of time and a lot of patience. It ended up being a long day for the “bathroom crew,” as such the group decided to move their dinner out in Mullens up to today instead of Thursday.

The group decided to try a new restaurant in town, the Rusted Musket. They were joined by Donna and Melinda and Courtney, big time part of the PVs via the Mullens soccer camp. Sounded like the food was great. Between a late day at the sites, hot weather and a good meal volunteers were beat and headed pretty much right to bed : ) We did hear that the volunteers had a nice facetime call with longtime PVs, the Poirer family, who were in Kentucky volunteering in the areas recovering from tornadoes.