Community Effort To Help Kids Also Means A Facelift For Rush Springs

A town generations strong, called on its youngest residents to restore some pride. Now, they are spending this summer not on themselves but on a mission to help others.

It started with community leaders of Rush Springs. It's now grown into a program that's putting kids to work and giving the city a facelift.

Each pull of the cord brings more than fresh cut grass.

"The grass goes up to like my waist,” Robert Clemons said.

It's a tall job.

"Rush Springs is a good town, but it has some needs,” Richard McCormack said. McCormack is a city council member and pastor of the Rush Springs Southern Baptist Church.

Those needs go beyond overgrown lawns and well lived-in homes.

"Some of the houses are third and fourth generations,” McCormack said.

Families have come and gone, but a new generation is hoping to pick up where things have fallen.

"Just to make the town look nicer,” Clemons said. “To make us feel good about it."

Each day, a group of kids load up and head out with mowers and tools in tow. It's a program run by the Southern Baptist Church in town giving summer jobs to kids and beautifying the city at the same time.

"There are a number of elderly who are unable to actually take care of their yard,” McCormack said.

It goes beyond yard work. They haul off garbage; make repairs - anything that needs to be done around town.

"The town represents all of us, and it's just not one person. So we try to make it look as best as we can,” Autumn Mathis said.

There's a consignment shop on main street, and money made there along with fundraisers is what funds the program.

"That money is put back into the town, the community to help them sometimes purchasing air conditioning for people to sometimes paying a bill that they need to,” McCormack said.

It also pays the teens in ways worth much more than their summer paycheck.

We just want to try and fix up the town,” Clemons said.

“It is helping kids stay out of trouble which is probably thing that they can do,” McCormack said.

This is the programs first year. If you’d like to help contact the Southern Baptist Church of Rush Springs at 580-476-3243.