Updates

The group arrived in Hurley on Monday, June 9, greeted by some familiar faces and served a wonderful taco dinner.

On Tuesday, the group formed three work teams. Henry, Beckett, Ada, Maggie and Father Ben worked with an older man to clear out his flooded basement and garage. An otherwise overwhelming task, they were able to help A.C. by carrying mason jars, tools and all other miscellaneous items. Ava, Carson, Cate, James, Andrew, Ryan and Margy pulled out sunken drywall and moldy insulation from a house and prepped a dilapidated deck for new decking installation. Lauralee, Libsy, Mia, Dylan, Keegan and Jen worked on turning a porch into a nursery for an expectant mother. Much of the morning was spent doing demolition and some planning, and they installed plywood over the existing deck.

On Wednesday, the group split into two teams: Henry, Ada and Beckett joined the deck crew (Ava, Carson, Cate, James, Andrew, Ryan and Margy) and continued to work on securing the existing deck and the roof over the porch. Maggie, Mia, Lauralee, Libsy, Dylan, Keegan, Father Ben and Jen continued to work on transforming the porch into a nursery. They began framing the exterior walls and made plans to frame out a door and a window.

On Thursday, the first team mostly wrapped up work on the porch, finishing the joists, deck boards, and railings. Inside, the rest of the team completed the insulation and got everything ready for drywall installation tomorrow. The other team stayed focused on building the nursery. The structure is really coming together, and we’ve started putting up OSB on the exterior walls.

On Thursday evening, the group was treated to music from Barret, a retired coal miner, and his daughter. The group jumped in on a few familiar songs like "Amazing Grace" and "This Little Light of Mine." It was a very a special way to end the day.

The group returns to Warrenton on Saturday and will be at church on Sunday to share their experiences.

About the trip

Fourteen young people and four adults from Saint James' will travel to Hurley, Virginia, from Monday, June 9 to Saturday, June 14 on a volunteer trip to support the work of Hurley Community Development, a nonprofit dedicated to helping the residents of this isolated and economically disadvantaged community stay in their homes. 

This will be the third year that young people from Saint James’ travel to Hurley for their mission trip. They’ve helped restore homes and perform other labor to help the community’s residents, supporting Hurley Community Development’s goal of “empower(ing) the people in Hurley to overcome poverty without having to leave their homes.” In the process, our young people interact with local residents, learn to see past stereotypes and expand their worldview. 

About Hurley

Hurley is an unincorporated community of roughly two- or three-thousand people in Buchanan (“buh-CAN-un”) County near the West Virginia and Kentucky lines. It’s one of countless communities in the Appalachian Mountains that sprang up during the industrial boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when coal mining and logging brought plentiful — if extremely dangerous — jobs to Appalachia. 

As those jobs dried up over the next century, an aging, impoverished and dwindling population was left behind. About three in four Hurley-area residents rely on some form of public assistance, including disability payouts after being injured or contracting black lung disease from working in the mines. Like most Appalachian communities, the Hurley area is also vulnerable to flooding and other environmental disasters.

Donations

We are raising money to donate to Hurley Community Development. Donations will support the projects we work on, along with the nonprofit’s year-round efforts.