Sign up for the 2026 youth mission trip
All rising 10th graders through 2026 high school grads are invited to participate in the 2026 youth volunteer trip to Hurley, Virginia, from Monday, June 15 to Saturday, June 20. If your high schooler is interested in participating, please email Jen Taylor at jennifer.taylor@saintjameswarrenton.org.
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.
We will be leaving on Monday morning, June 15, and returning late Saturday evening, June 20. Students are not permitted to drive, we will be riding together on the SJES bus. The cost per student is $400 and includes lodging and food while in Hurley.
Photos from 2025
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.
