Will provide home repairs for elderly residents

About 200 World Changers volunteers have begun neighborhood improvement projects in Little Rock including painting 90-year-old Carl Hines home in the Granite Mountain area of the city.

On Tuesday morning, about a dozen volunteers were preparing Hines’ home to be painted and were joined by Mayor Frank Scott, Jr., At-Large City Director Joan Adcock, City Manager Bruce T. Moore, Housing and Neighborhood Programs staff and others to kick off the project.

Scott welcomed the volunteers, who traveled from around the country to Little Rock, making 2019 the 16th year for the group to work in Arkansas’s capital city. He joked that the group couldn’t have picked a better year.

“Normally it’s 90 degrees this time of year in Little Rock so you guys have a great day with this nice breeze,” Scott said. “But, I want to welcome our World Changers friends. We are very grateful for this partnership with a faith-based organization clearly committed to true ministry – the ministry of people; the ministry of revitalization, and the ministry of making certain we all are working well together.”

World Changers volunteers pay about $280 to travel to cities around the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico to work on repair projects. The organization is supported by the Southern Baptist Convention and area churches provide living quarters and meals for the volunteers.

Hines, said he was pleasantly surprised to learn he had been selected to have his home painted.

“You never know what the Lord has in store for you,” he said and thanked the volunteers and City officials and staff.

Kevin Howard, the city’s Community Development Manager, said the program provides painting and exterior repairs for home owners who wouldn’t be able to afford the work.