This year marks the 10th anniversary of Mission Trip Birdsboro & Beyond (MTBB), a ministry where community members volunteer to help local homeowners in need with repair projects. Workers also complete projects at public sites, including local parks.

For this year's effort, more than 150 volunteers worked from July 18 to 22 at 48 homes in the area and on two community projects, including the community garden at St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Birdsboro. The week culminated with a closing celebration held at Reading Country Club.

Each morning, the crews gathered at St. Mark's, where church members prepared breakfast for the volunteers, who then departed to the various work sites. They completed jobs such as painting, power washing, making roof repairs and landscaping, which included pulling weeds and mulching. Volunteers wore matching T-shirts that read, "Your Hand Is God's Hand," based on Proverbs 3:27. Additionally, a "God's Hands at Work" sign was posted at each work site.

At one home in Robeson Township, crews replaced flood-damaged wooden siding. "We are removing all of the existing siding and replacing the bottom four feet of siding where there was flood damage," explained volunteer Monica Block. "Today we are doing all the replacement work, and tomorrow we are painting all the wood at the bottom and the top and putting new stucco on the bottom."

This is Block's sixth year volunteering with MTBB. "I grew up in Birdsboro, and for me, it's a way to give back," she said. "The (homeowner) is a single mother, and I was raised by a single mother, so I knew what that was like growing up."

The summer volunteer program started in 2014 as Mission Trip Birdsboro, a ministry of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Birdsboro. "St. Paul's started the ministry to do mission work close to home without costly travel and to address the community's local needs," said Stuart Wells, MTBB board member and vice chair of the promotion team. "It was decided to strive to model Christ's love by offering struggling homeowners the gift of help and a no-cost work crew."

In the first year, volunteers worked at four homes and two community projects. Currently, the ministry attracts more than 100 volunteers each year helping at more than 40 sites. "In our first decade we have grown tenfold. We now work at 10 times as many sites and have more than five times as many volunteer participants," noted Wells.

As a result of the mission's success and growth, the ministry became known as Mission Trip Birdsboro & Beyond in January 2021, and it is a fully independent nonprofit organization.

Wells said that volunteers strive to serve as a visible example of Christian love in action. "Actions speak louder than words, and Christ teaches us to take action through faith, love, service to others, mercy, justice and forgiveness," he stated. "The leadership of Mission Trip Birdsboro & Beyond looks forward to another 10 years of striving to model Jesus' lessons of Christian love."

To learn more about the ministry and to view photos and videos from the work week, visit http://www.facebook.com/MissionTripBirdsboro.