On June 22, the 300 volunteers of Project Impact stepped up to the plate and drove their community service pitch right out of the park.

The initiative was organized in April of last year at the Powhatan Community Church by a handful of volunteers who had previously done some pilot projects in the community. The recent program, however, was to be a highly organized invasion of an entire community. The volunteer army attacked dozens of predetermined home improvement and safety issues in the Avatar and Moyer Road area and, when the sawdust and paint fumes had settled late on that Saturday afternoon, Impact had more than lived up to its name.

After a worship service the Impact Army grabbed bag lunches and caravanned down to Dorset Road. “In some instances, it was like Extreme Home Makeover,” said Jackie Heberle, one of the project’s organizers.

One home received a complete exterior paint job, including the porch and all of the trim. Five homes had their yards spruced up as volunteers cut the overgrown grass and trimmed the borders.

Some homes got a landscaping treatment, including bush trimming and the planting of new shrubs and flowers. Dead trees were cut down and removed at two homes, while four homes had trees trimmed and brush removed.

Exhibiting the great array of talent that Impact managed to assemble at Powhatan Community Church, certified plumbers replaced a water heater and electricians rewired a well pump. Contractors and volunteers were installing an entire new roof on one home while another group replaced siding blown off in a recent storm.

There were lots of gutters cleaned out and repainted while trim work got a fresh coat of paint.

“In one case we were asked to paint the trim on a garage,” said volunteer Andy Heberle. “But we ended up painting the entire garage.” Much debris, rock and brush found its way out of yards in the area but one elderly lady had difficulty convincing her skeptical daughter that Impact was indeed going to arrive, paint, mow and trim at no charge. The daughter was finally convinced when a neighbor pointed out a recent addition to her mother’s front yard: a port-o-potty.

Impact had taken an aggressively proactive stance in the community. While flyers placed at businesses around the county made some citizens aware of the projects’s goals, volunteers actually went door to door to determine the needs and to prescreen potential clients for the June 22 event.

“The great part was the fantastic fellowship,” Andy Heberle said.

“It was an incredible experience. We have gotten a lot of response from people requesting our help, but we have gotten just about as much from the volunteers wanting to know when we are going to do it again.”