Teams Cross County With Helping Hands By Fawn Roark Carolina Cross Connection (CCC) teams are spending the summer in Ashe County and completing projects in the area from painting a porch to building a wheelchair ramp. The teams are currently camping at Elk Shoals United Methodist Camp. Local woman, Ennice Goodman (back row, middle), was very pleased that campers from CCC visited with her last week and worked on a roof over her wheelchair ramp on her porch. Photo by Fawn Roark The teams of five to seven campers go out each day of the week to work on projects selected by the staff that will help make life more pleasant for someone in need. These projects include light home repair, painting, cleaning up yards, building porches or wheelchair ramps and more. “We have started on the projects and did six yesterday and have six today and tomorrow. We are working with a lot of different folks and have a list of 36 folks in the four county area that we will be working with,” CCC Summer Staff Member Melissa Lineberger explained. “We will be having more campers up so we will continue working until August 1st.” “We take on projects through any means we can – from Ashe Services for Aging, Hospice, Department of Social Services and we get a lot of work through word of mouth. People will tell their neighbors and friends so we send someone out to visit first and see if it is something we can do and make sure everything is safe for the campers,” she added. Local woman, Ennice Goodman, was very pleased that campers from CCC visited with her last week and worked on a roof over her wheelchair ramp on her porch. “I had a group come last year and they came back this year. I really enjoy them and they are such a blessing – it’s wonderful what all they do to help out. I have enjoyed having them here to eat lunch with me. They truly are a blessing to have around,” Goodman said about CCC. The Carolina Cross Connection program provides a great way for local residents here to receive help from the campers while the campers get an opportunity to learn a lot about an area or needs they might not be very familiar with. “The campers had a lot of great things to say. When we got back into camp yesterday, they seemed to really enjoy being at people’s homes and meeting them. This year we brought Bibles that were signed by the campers and it seemed to really make a difference with some of the people we visited. They seemed so uplifted by what we were doing,” Lineberger noted. Carolina Cross Connection is a non-profit organization and uses donations from cash donations to actual donations of items such as wood that can be used in one of their projects. Lineberger said they will be taking referrals for local needs all summer long and work will be continuing on the different projects. The non-profit also receives both monetary donations and donations of material like lumber, nails or other supplies needed to complete local projects. For more information or to make a referral for a project that Carolina Cross Connection might be able to help with, call Lineberger at 336-877-2058. For more information online, visit www.carolinacrossconnection.org.