Youth Office Helps Rebuild Footbridge

By Mary Frances McCarthy
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 1/16/03)

Every summer for the last 12 years, the diocesan Office of Youth Ministry has invited teenagers to spend some time in the "country" and help the less fortunate through WorkCamp activities. For one week, the youths get the chance to work like Christ; working as carpenters and serving the poor. The camps include daily Mass and prayer groups, as well as some serious hard work.

During the summer of 1998, a church in the Luray area began designing and building two new footbridges across a stream to help families who had to walk a distance downstream to cross a river to get to the road. When the Office of Youth Ministry heard of this project, they offered to help through their annual WorkCamp. One hundred sixty youths from the diocese spent a week in Luray volunteering on 40 different work sites, two of which were to help with the construction of these bridges. The WorkCampers worked side by side with the volunteers from the local church to build the bridges.

The footbridges cross Naked Creek near the Shenandoah River in Page County. The bridges that the WorkCampers helped build replaced less-sturdy crossings that had been built by the families and had been badly damaged during a flood.

The two bridges that were built in 1998 were made of pressure-treated wood and built on cinderblock foundations about 10 feet above the water. They were built above the flood level of the creek and were significantly stronger than previous bridges. One bridge was about 75 feet long, the other about 120 feet long.

Last fall, the Office of Youth Ministry was notified that the bridges were no longer passable and were in need of major repairs. "As I drove up the valley to look at the bridges, from a quarter mile away my heart sunk to see how badly they had deteriorated in just three years," said Kevin Bohli, diocesan director of youth ministry.

When the Office of Youth Ministry tried repeatedly to contact the church in Luray that had originally helped with the project, there was no response. The youth office felt a moral responsibility to rebuild the bridges since they were involved in the original construction. "WorkCamp has a policy to leave a home in better condition than when we started. Time showed us that in this case we did not," said Bohli.

For this reason, the Youth Office donated over $30,000 from the 2003 WorkCamp funds for the construction of two new bridges. Each bridge helps a family who has to cross the water to get to the main road. One of these families includes children who have to cross the creek to get to school.

In order to prevent any future moral or legal concerns, the Office of Youth Ministry had a contract written between the families and a professional contractor to design and build new, steel-supported bridges. They donated the funds to build the bridges directly to the families who are the legal owners of the bridges that were built in December.

"In this case, we were able to help the families," said Bohli, "but I don’t think we will be building any more bridges."

On May 3, the youth office will sponsor a dinner and auction to raise money to replace the revenue they used from the WorkCamp fund. The dinner will be held at St. Agnes Church in Arlington at 7 p.m. For more information on the dinner, or to make a donation for the auction, call the Office of Youth Ministry at 703/841-2559.

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