Youth Volunteer Trip
JUNE 15-20, 2026 • HURLEY, VIRGINIALatest News
About the trip
About a dozen young people and five adults from Saint James’ will travel to Hurley, Virginia, from Monday, June 15, to Saturday, June 20, 2026, 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 fourth 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.
Donate & Pray
While our students are covering their own travel expenses, we are collecting donations to support Hurley Community Development, the nonprofit that hosts us each year and works year-round to help residents of the Hurley area.
We are also asking for volunteers to pray for the group during their trip. You can sign up for morning, afternoon and evening slots.
About Hurley
Hurley is an unincorporated community of roughly 2,700 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 — including a significant flood last year — and other environmental disasters.
