History
For almost as long as Christian Appalachian Project has been in existence, groups of college students have been serving with us. But until WorkFest, just a handful of students would come at a time. Then one CAP employee had the idea of inviting multiple college groups to come volunteer together, giving students a “hands on” way to live out the Gospel and learn more about Appalachia at the same time. By using skilled short-term volunteers to lead students in a building blitz, CAP could serve exponentially more families than our normal Housing crews could, and educate students from as far away as Maine and Minnesota about poverty in eastern Kentucky and the perseverance of its people. As one volunteer noted at the time, “That’s a great idea, but how are we going to pull it off?”
It did take a lot of work, but in 1992, the first WorkFest welcomed more than 100 volunteers. Being such a great success, we eventually added more weeks and expanded WorkFest to two sites. Today, CAP welcomes more than 400 students each March, serving about 20 families each year. Below are links to information about and pictures from our most recent WorkFests.
WorkFest 2011
The 20th WorkFest welcomed perennial WorkFesters St. Joseph’s College of Maine and College of Mount St. Joseph, along with new schools like Duke (the same week as UNC!) and Drexel. An awesome three weeks with 18 families served.
