A Time of Intense Labor, Focus, and Emotion

At Home in Kentucky by Rachel DeKold, Class of '09

This March I had the great experience of being part of Workfest 2009 in Eastern Kentucky. Sponsored by Campus Ministry and Indiana Campus Compact, Workfest is one of many programs that are part of the Christian Appalachian Project.

With us were students from seven different colleges and universities from Michigan, Indiana, Florida, Connecticut, Maine and Washington, D.C. The students made up a diverse group including some from as far away as Malaysia and France.

Workfest is a time of intense free labor, a time of fixing up the homes of "in need" homeowners in the Eastern Kentucky part of Appalachia. Our jobs were to be servants and to learn from the families we worked with. While we worked they told us stories about their lives, giving us a better understanding of everything they had endured. It was truly an enlightening experience.

Students worked in the hills, hollers, and towns. Some teams tore houses down and rebuilt almost totally new homes; others replaced floors, roofs, doors and walls. Our group put up a metal roof, installed new windows and doors and paneled a living room.

We prayed together, ate together, danced together, and sang together. Mostly, we laughed together, and sometimes we shed a tear. It was a time of intense labor but also a time of intense emotion and focus.

The biggest and most important success story is that all eight of the families we helped will have new homes. Another success story is that all the participants of the Christian Appalachian Project, not just those from our school but from all the schools, bonded in building those houses for the families. The last success story I can think of is my own. While at Workfest, I realized that God was calling me to more long-term volunteer work.

Dr. Carl Jylland-Halverson, a USF Psychology faculty member who shared the experience with us, had these thoughts:

"So, what did we get out of Workfest 2009? We had a week of 'faithing' together, of seeing love in action. We joined with folks from around the nation and the world to help people in a particular region. We were open to those people changing us. We got to know one another in a different way and in a different setting. We got to see our faiths in action and our Franciscan values at work."

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A Time of Intense Labor, Focus, and Emotion

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