NOMAD Project Success
For three weeks in February the NOMADS worked in the St. Petersburg neighborhood around St. Luke's United Methodist Church, providing volunteer labor for people in need of home repairs. For those unable to provide the materials needed for their repair, a $1,000 mini-grant from United Methodist Cooperative Ministries was used to buy the necessary construction materials.
The NOMADS, Nomads, On a Mission Active in Divine Service, are an outreach ministry of the United Methodist Church that provides volunteer labor and tools for all sorts of projects involving new construction, remodeling, repair or reconstruction to churches, homes, camps, youth centers and other agencies. They are volunteers with recreational vehicles, so they are self sufficient and provide their own transportation. They spend up to three weeks at each location and work 20-25 hours per week.
St. Luke's made arrangements for three NOMADS couples to come in their mobile homes and park on the church parking lot, while they did repair work for those in need throughout the neighborhood. To secure participants for the project, St. Luke's distributed flyers door-to-door in the neighborhood and notified the two neighborhood associations which meet at the church. The church also contributed $400 toward the purchase of material.
One of the persons served was a man in his nineties whose home was badly in need of painting, but he was physically unable to do the work himself and financially unable to afford to hire someone. Money from the mini-grant was used for this job, but when the neighbors heard that painting was being done by a volunteer church group with donated supplies, they wanted to contribute to the project also. This recipient at first could not believe that strangers would help him in this way. What a witness.
Another project was for a retired single woman on a limited income whose minor repair work had been accumulating. She needed her washer repaired, and the hand rails, used to help her climb the steps since her knee replacement, refurbished. These and other small repairs are making her life easier.
A third recipient was a grandmother who has both her daughter and granddaughter living with her. She had tried several times to get her leaky roof repaired to no avail. But, the NOMADS who tackled the job were able to find and repair the leak, which since has withstood a strong rain storm, leak free.
Other repairs filled the NOMADS three weeks in St. Petersburg and they anticipate coming again next winter for a similar kind of mission. 
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