There are military missions, personal missions and church missions. The congregation at Powhatan Community Church has incorporated the organization and precision of a military mission — and the commitment of a personal mission — to bring mission Impact to those in need in Powhatan County. 

When Andy and Jackie Heberle joined the congregation of Powhatan Community Church last April they discovered that the church did have a program designed to provide home repair assistance to area residents. The PCC Pipes program was foundering however, and Andy Herberle called upon his gifts for motivation and organization to pull together 100 church volunteers and organize mission Impact.

Impact now provides a wide range of home repair and property maintenance services for people who find themselves in difficult situations. The church provides approximately $10,000 per year, and local merchants such as Home Depot and Duron Paints are active supporters of the program, offering deeply discounted material and even free supplies. With the dedicated volunteers providing free labor, the Impact program has already earned a solid reputation in the county.

So far, Impact has spearheaded approximately a dozen projects. Roofs have been repaired and replaced, siding replaced, walls rebuilt, floors repaired and plumbing and electrical renovations completed. The program has also been able to find and recruit professional electricians, plumbers and other licensed contractors within the PCC congregation.

Impact uses several methods to identify candidates for its services. Social Services provides the names of some of those in need. The church group also distributes questionnaires at various agencies and actually canvasses neighborhoods to find those whom they can assist. All candidates are carefully screened with priority given to those with disabilities. Once a candidate is selected, the work is scheduled and a team is dispatched to do the work.  That team may be only two people or as many as twenty or thirty volunteers.

Scott Huff, Tim Dixon, Chris Ashman and Robert Heyde are the team leaders “and absolutely invaluable to our projects,” Heberle said. And there is Team Grub Worms, led by Carol Brooks. “They bring us food and drink to keep us going, but more importantly, they lift our spirits.” Herberle was concerned that his role as Impact leader not be overemphasized. Although he resurrected the project, got it organized and admittedly “pushed some people in the church to learn how to write grants for money,” he insists that the team leaders and the volunteers are the true heroes of the program.

On June 22, the Impact group will take on its biggest project so far, an entire neighborhood. Impact previously canvassed the residents along Moyer and Avatar Roads off Dorset Road and have a dozen projects lined up in that neighborhood for that day. Heberle’s hope is that the entire church congregation —“We’re looking for somewhere between two hundred and six hundred people,” — will hold an onsite church service between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. and then attack the various projects. “We already have the material purchased and the jobs lined up,” said Heberle. “Our goal is to have the entire congregation of Powhatan Community Church impact a neighborhood.”

But Impact has no plans to slow down. Quite the contrary. “It’s a ministry that needs to grow,” said Heberle. Identifying more candidates, attracting more volunteers, soliciting more support from suppliers and learning the procedures involved in soliciting and obtaining grants are all a part of the program’s game plan to move the ministry forward.  “If people matter to God they matter to us,” Heberle said.

Information about Impact is available through the church’s office at 598-1174.