| Founded | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Rev. Glenn "Tex" Evans |
| Type | Interdenominational, non-profit Christian Mission |
| 62-0989383 | |
| Location |
|
Area served | Central Appalachia, specifically in the states of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia. |
Employees | 34 |
Volunteers | 16,267 |
| Website | Official Website |
Appalachia Service Project or ASP is a non-governmental organization which was founded in 1969. ASP addresses substandard housing using volunteer labor to perform repairs to make homes "warmer, safer, and drier." ASP operates in Central Appalachia, specifically in the states of Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The mission statement of ASP is "Appalachia Service Project is a Christian ministry, open to all people, that inspires hope and service through volunteer home repair in Central Appalachia," and ASP's vision is that "substandard housing in Central Appalachia will be eradicated and that everyone who comes into contact with this ministry will be transformed." Repairs are made using volunteer labor and at no cost to the homeowner. Between 1969 and 2015, ASP hosted 377,412 volunteers and performed repairs on 17,373 homes. [1]
ASP was founded in 1969 by Rev. Glenn "Tex" Evans, who emphasized the importance of providing service to those in need "right where they are, just the way they are." While working as a director at Henderson Settlement in Frakes, Kentucky, Evans saw first hand the need for assistance in home repairs among his neighbors. Later when he became a staff member of the Board Of Discipleship of the United Methodist Church in Nashville TN, he took several weeks off from his preaching schedule to recruit 50 teens and their adult counselors to repair four homes in Barbourville, Kentucky. This initiative has evolved into the Appalachia Service Project, which currently mobilizes between 15,000 and 17,000 volunteers each year to provide repairs to more than 500 families.[1]
ASP continued to grow between 1969 and 1976 by sponsoring regional workshops across the country to educate volunteers about the Appalachian region, bringing ASP's volunteers together to discuss their experiences and discuss replication of ASP's home repair model in their home communities. As an outgrowth of this vision, ASP expanded its work outside of the Central Appalachian region during the summer of 1976, sponsoring work crews in Arkansas, California, Alabama, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Kentucky. Although ASP returned to its Central Appalachian roots the following summer, the Sierra Service Project in California became a successful spin-off and still exists today.
Throughout the summer, ASP hosts volunteers aged 14 years and up. More than 14,000 youth, college, and adult volunteer groups come to Central Appalachian Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia to perform home repairs during the months of June and July. [1] Volunteer groups perform a week a service and are housed in one of ASP's 26 "summer centers", often schools or community centers that have been leased by ASP. ASP staff provide direction for home repair projects and supply tools, construction materials, and three meals each day.
In 1980, ASP established the first of its permanent facilities, the Jonesville Housing Services Center in Lee County, VA. Prior to the development of this property, ASP had operated as a summer program only. The Housing Services Center, however, established a year-round home rehabilitation program in Jonesville, VA, available to low-income homeowners and advised by a council of local residents.
Follow a 1989 capital campaign, ASP acquired and renovated a second housing services center in Chavies, KY to serve residents of Perry County throughout the year. The third year-round center, located in Brenton, WV was acquired in 1996, when the Wyoming County school board offered ASP permanent use of the former Guyan Valley Elementary School facility.
ASP continues to host volunteers for a week or shorter periods of time throughout the year at these permanent facilities. [1] Volunteers who participate in the year-round program are matched with projects to suit their skills and level of construction experience. Although year-round centers welcome youth volunteers, the program focus is geared more specifically to adult and college-aged groups, and evening programming is not required for all groups. Moreover, volunteers with the year-round program stay in facilities that are climate-controlled and offer amenities such as bunk beds and indoor showers. [1]
The operations of the Year-Round Program are supervised by ASP's "Fellows". The ASP Fellowship was first established through a donation from the Lily Endowment, and includes seminars and activities designed to facilitate the process of vocational discernment. During their year of service, ASP's Fellows live in and immerse themselves in the community they work alongside, in addition to supervising and guiding work groups through their assigned construction projects.
ASP's founder, Tex Evans, always said: "We'd love for all ASP volunteers to come back each summer, but if they don't because they have started this in their own community, we'd love that even more." CSP chapters use ASP's model for home repair to plan and complete projects in their own community. [1] CSP was launched in September, 2014 and 12 Campus Chapters are currently in operation. These chapters are student-run, student-led organizations on college campuses that are nationally affiliated with ASP. The mission statement of CSP is "College Service Project inspires students to lives of Christian service and leadership through home repair for low-income families in Central Appalachia and back in their home communities." [1]
Students involved with CSP also volunteer with ASP and carry out a trip to one of ASP's Year Round centers during the fall, winter, or spring; fundraise and gain community sponsorship in order to raise the funds necessary to complete their projects; and recruit volunteers from within their community as well as potential applicants for ASP's Summer Staff program. Furthermore, members of CSP chapters are encouraged to serve with their communities in other ways that promote social justice and are compatible with the guiding principles of ASP. [1]
In addition, CSP provides college students with the opportunity to develop professional skills outside of a classroom setting. The various activities performed by CSP chapters provide students with hands-on experience in construction management, community development, marketing, grant writing, fundraising, recruitment, and volunteer management.
Launched in response to flooding in the Dry Creek and Cash Hollow communities of Washington County, Tennessee in August 2012, [2] ASP operates a disaster recovery program designed to assist low-income families in the Central Appalachian region rebuild following disasters such as fires or floods.
Following the June 23, 2016 floods in West Virginia, ASP launched the Rebuilding Rainelle initiative to assist families in Rainelle, WV and surrounding towns. This program, which has been implemented by ASP in partnership with Homes for White Sulphur Springs, the St. Bernard Project, and Neighbors Loving Neighbors completed the first new home for a flood survivor in West Virginia on November 22, 2016. [1] [3] ASP expects to complete 60 new homes for flood survivors and will continue work through 2017.
ASP began constructing new homes in 1985 to help those in Central Appalachia achieve decent, safe, and sanitary housing and to complement the home repair ministry. Since that time, 201 new homes have been built in primarily Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky. Although the program was temporarily suspended during the 2000s due to operating deficits, the program was relaunched following the success of the new build program developed in the aftermath of the Dry Creek floods.
ASP's New Build Appalachia program provides mortgage-free new homes to families in East Tennessee and has constructed 22 new homes since 2014. The recipients of these homes are typically low-income families whose homes are beyond repair. [4]
Race to Build is an annual event hosted by ASP in partnership with the Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. During the Spring Race in 2016, volunteers from as far north as Washington, D.C., down to Tri Cities, Tennessee, came together to build a home for a veteran, his wife, and two adopted children at the speedway. Volunteers were challenged to push the limits of how quickly it would be possible to build a house. In just one week, the house was completely built and furnished, and was dedicated on the morning of the Food City 500. [5] After construction was completed, the home was moved to a permanent location for the family.
Looking to the future, ASP will continue to partner with the Bristol Motor Speedway to create spin-offs of this event. In spring of 2017, three colleges will compete to build a house as quickly as they can in just 3 ½ days. They will be measured on speed, accuracy, safety, and other factors, and the winning college will bring home a scholarship and claims to first place.
Wise County is a county located in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county was formed in 1856 from Lee, Scott, and Russell Counties and named for Henry A. Wise, who was the Governor of Virginia at the time.
Appalachia is a socio-economic region located in the central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. It stretches from the western Catskill Mountains of New York state into Pennsylvania, continuing on through the Blue Ridge Mountains and Great Smoky Mountains into northern Georgia and Alabama. In 2020, the region was home to an estimated 26.1 million people, of whom roughly 80% were white.
The University of Pikeville (UPIKE) is a private university affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and located in Pikeville, Kentucky. It was founded in 1889 by the Presbyterian Church and is located on a 25-acre (10 ha) campus on a hillside overlooking downtown Pikeville.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a United States federal–state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life. Congress established ARC to bring the region into socioeconomic parity with the rest of the nation.
Appalshop is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in the heart of the southern Appalachian region of the United States.
The Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) is an interdenominational non-profit organization, based in Kentucky, US. Their mission is "building hope, transforming lives, and sharing Christ's love through service in Appalachia".
Southwest Virginia, often abbreviated as SWVA, is a mountainous region of Virginia in the westernmost part of the commonwealth. Located within the broader region of western Virginia, Southwest Virginia has been defined alternatively as all Virginia counties on the Appalachian Plateau, all Virginia counties west of the Eastern Continental Divide, or at its greatest expanse, as far east as Blacksburg and Roanoke. Another geographic categorization of the region places it as those counties within the Tennessee River watershed. Regardless of how borders are drawn, Southwest Virginia differs from the rest of the commonwealth in that its culture is more closely associated with Appalachia than the other regions of Virginia. Historically, the region has been and remains a rural area, but in the 20th century, coal mining became an important part of its economy. With the decline in the number of coal jobs and the decline of tobacco as a cash crop, Southwest Virginia is increasingly turning to tourism as a source of economic development. Collectively, Southwest Virginia's craft, music, agritourism and outdoor recreation are referred to as the region's "creative economy."
The Appalachian College of Pharmacy (ACP), formerly known as the University of Appalachia, College of Pharmacy, is a private doctoral pharmacy school located in Oakwood, Virginia. The school, established in 2003, is Virginia's only three-year accelerated Doctor of Pharmacy program. ACP's mission is to improve the health outcomes of rural and underserved communities, particularly those in Central Appalachia, through education, service, and scholarship.
The Piarist School is a private, Roman Catholic college preparatory school in Hagerhill, Kentucky. It is operated by The Piarist Fathers (Piarists) independent of and with the blessing and spiritual support of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington. The present school is the second location for the Piarist School which began in 1990 in Martin, Kentucky.
World Vision Appalachia is an organization of World Vision, an international Christian relief and humanitarian organization serving the world's under-resourced children and families in nearly 100 countries. World Vision Appalachia's work in Appalachia, United States began in 1983 when the organization provided a $1000 grant to help fund the construction of a basketball court in the Chestnut Ridge community of Barbour County, West Virginia. This grant and the completion of the basketball court marked the beginning of what has grown into over twenty-four years of a deepening commitment to the Appalachian region. World Vision Appalachia serves families and organizations in 37 of West Virginia's 55 counties and surrounding states.
Appalachia is a socio-economic region of the Eastern United States. Home to over 25 million people, the region includes mountainous areas of 13 states: Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, as well as the entirety of West Virginia.
The Council of the Southern Mountains (CSM) was a non-profit organization, active from 1912 to 1989, concerned with education and community development in southern Appalachia.
Appalachian Volunteers (AV) was a non-profit organization engaged in community development projects in central Appalachia that evolved into a controversial community organizing network, with a reputation that went "from self-help to sedition" as its staff developed from "reformers to radicals," teaching things from Marx, Lenin and Mao, in the words of one historian, in the brief period between 1964 and 1970 during the War on Poverty.
David Walls is an activist and academic who has made significant contributions to Appalachian studies and to the popular understanding of social movements. He is professor emeritus of sociology at Sonoma State University (SSU) in California, where he was dean of extended education from 1984 to 2000.
Settlement schools are social reform institutions established in rural Appalachia in the early 20th century with the purpose of educating mountain children and improving their isolated rural communities.
Eula Hall was an Appalachian activist and healthcare pioneer who founded the Mud Creek Clinic in Grethel in Floyd County, Kentucky.
Jim Wayne Miller was an American poet and educator who had a major influence on literature in the Appalachian region.
Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia is the study of environmental justice – the interdisciplinary body of social science literature studying theories of the environment and justice; environmental laws, policies, and their implementations and enforcement; development and sustainability; and political ecology – in relation to coal mining in Appalachia.
Helen Matthews Lewis was an American sociologist, historian, and activist who specialized in Appalachia and women's rights. She was noted for developing an interpretation of Appalachia as an internal United States colony, as well as designing the first academic programs for Appalachian studies. She also specialized in Appalachian oral history, collecting and preserving the experiences of Appalachian working-class women in their own words. She is known as the "grandmother of Appalachian Studies" as her work has influenced a generation of scholars who focus on Appalachia.
Helen Dingman was an American academic and social worker who was one of the central figures in the Progressive and New Deal eras to bring social and economic reform to Appalachia. After teaching in Massachusetts for five years from 1912 to 1917, Dingman moved to Kentucky to establish the Smith Community Life School under the auspices of the United Presbyterian Church. Serving as principal and directing six other schools in Harlan County, Kentucky, she provided both education and social services to the community until 1922. After a two year placement as an assistant superintendent for the mission board in New York, she was hired as a teacher in the Sociology Department at Berea College. She taught social work courses and trained teachers for the rural schools in the region until 1952. In addition, she served as Executive Secretary of the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers, establishing the professional basis for social workers. The first comprehensive economic and social survey of the Southern Appalachias was spearheaded by Dingman.
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