Can you tell I’m excited?
Mountain T.O.P. has announced its Adults In Ministry (AIM) schedule for 2006, including the return of the two programs in which I participated from 1993 through 2003 and which were not held in 2005. I’m going to fill out my vacation request tomorrow.
Adults In Ministry is a program which places adult volunteers into the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. Some volunteers work on major home repair projects, while others work in Summer Plus (a program of enrichment workshops for teens from remote mountain communities) or Kaleidoscope (an arts program for special needs children from the mountains).
Each of the three programs has room for highly-skilled and unskilled volunteers, men and women. Whether you’re Bob Vila or whether you’re not quite sure which end of the hammer you hold, we can use you on a home repair team, and the same goes for the youth programs. I still remember when my mother went on an AIM weekend — she was so excited because she learned how to mud drywall!
I first got involved in Mountain T.O.P. because I thought it would be fun to teach creative writing in Summer Plus. But the program has meant far more to me than that one workshop. I’ve been a Mountain T.O.P. board member since 1994, with only two one-year breaks.
Volunteers travel to Mountain T.O.P. events from all over the U.S. Please think about coming and joining us next year! E-mail me or go to the Mountain T.O.P. web site for more information.
Here’s the schedule:
- June 18-24, 2006, Beersheba Springs Assembly, Major Home Repair and Summer Plus offered
- July 6-9, Camp Cumberland Pines, Major Home Repair only (note that this is not a week-long event but has a schedule similar to our fall weekends)
- July 16-22, Beersheba Springs Assembly, Major Home Repair and Kaleidoscope offered
- Sept. 21-24, Cumberland Pines, Major Home Repair
- Oct. 5-8, Cumberland Pines, Major Home Repair
- Oct. 19-22, Cumberland Pines, Major Home Repair
- Nov. 2-5, Cumberland Pines, Major Home Repair
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