Forty-two high school-aged students from Basking Ridge Presbyterian Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey arrived in the Pine Tree State July 10 to spend a week doing home improvement work in the Midcoast.
This year’s trip marked 26 years of partnership between the New Jersey church and the Lincoln County-based non profits Carpenter’s Boatshop and Community Housing Improvement Program, or CHIP Inc.
With only sleeping bags, an outhouse, and a communal shower to their name, the volunteers from Basking Ridge did without luxurious amenities and the promise of a lazy summer break to help improve homes throughout Lincoln County. The volunteers were directed to projects by CHIP Inc., who coordinated the efforts with the needs of homeowners.
According to CHIP vice president Steve Busch, many aid seekers don’t want their neighbors knowing they’ve reached out for help.
“Mainers are a very proud people,” Busch said. “We’re used to living on less.”
The volunteers were divided into several groups and sent to various locations throughout Lincoln County. The goal of every CHIP project is to make the home warm, safe, and dry. Aided by several carpenters, the Basking Ridge volunteers helped paint, roof, and rebuild. At one site in northern Waldoboro, 10 volunteers helped carpenter Ken Smith repair a deck that was on verge of collapse.
“We do anything an army of people can do,” said Smith, who is in his second year working with CHIP.
The high school students worked on houses from 8:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. everyday, July 12 through July 16. Many of those on this year’s trip have made the trip up to Maine before, and those who volunteered for the first time expressed their desire to return next year.
“It’s a great experience,” said Maddie Carroll, a first time volunteer with the program, “I definitely plan on coming back and bringing other people with me.”
Both Busch and Smith noted that bonds often form between the young volunteers and those they’re helping, encouraging those that help to return the next year.
CHIP was founded in 1984 by the late Ruth Ives, of Pemaquid, after discovering a family of nine living under the cap of a pick-up truck. This finding led Ives to investigate poverty in the Lincoln County area. Ives ran CHIP from the Carpenter’s Boatshop, an organization founded by Ives and her husband Rev. Robert Ives as a safe haven for people whose lives are in transition.
The Carpenter’s Boatshop hosts the Basking Ridge visitors while they work.
Though the volunteers are helping those less fortunate, Busch insists that the goal of the Basking Ridge-CHIP partnership is only partially geared toward raising awareness of poverty. The ultimate goal, according to Busch, is to not just promote charity, but to show each volunteer that they are just like the people they are helping.
“It’s not just helping poor people, “said Busch. “These are nice people. They’re people like us. It brings to them an awareness of a little bootstrapping.”
