West Jeannette will get spruced up, thanks to canceled mission trip

When a New York City mission trip for 30 area middle schoolers had to be canceled earlier this year, Cornerstone Ministries Pastor Joel Guinen looked closer to home to make a difference.

The group will be embarking on a week-long “Mission Home” cleanup project in West Jeannette, targeting a playground, field house and a few abandoned properties.

“While many of our students were excited to go to New York City, they don’t have to travel far to find places where we can make a great impact,” Guinen said. “It teaches them to look for every day opportunities.”

Youth from the Murrysville church will power-wash playground equipment at West Jeannette Playground and clean and paint Jeannette Midget Football’s Russ Wiley Memorial Field House. Three abandoned properties on 12th Street will be cleaned up. Brush and weeds have grown two stories high on the road lined with tidy, well-kept homes.

Young church-goers participate in mission trips annually, but the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to it this year. When the local opportunity presented itself, Guinen said it seemed like a perfect way to combine resources to make a difference.

“Everything the city has been through … definitely made it feel like a worthy investment,” he said.

Fire Chief Bill Frye said the work will have a tremendous impact on that part of town.

“The city doesn’t have the manpower or the money to clean up every vacant property in the city,” he said.

The public works department will provide a dump truck and chipper to clear the brush and Guinen said the church is bringing a large trash receptacle for anything else they find. The work will help Frye inspect four homes on the parcels to evaluate the potential need for demolition.

“The properties are so overgrown, we can’t even get in to assess the buildings right now,” he said. “The whole neighborhood gets along and we want to try to improve on it.”

Guinen said he is grateful for the generosity and cooperation from the city while teaching the middle schoolers how to have “an others-focused mindset.” They will get started Monday.

“We want to be a benefit to the community and make the largest impact we can,” he said.