OGDEN -- When the Washington Heights Baptist Church congregation chose a location for its humanitarian mission this year, members decided to stay close to home.
Twenty-four homes in downtown Ogden now look better and brighter because of the efforts of more than 500 congregation members and other volunteers.
Church mission leader Jimmy Pitts said the congregation made its choice after the congregation did a service project painting fire hydrants around the city last year.
"We wanted to try something bigger and so we thought, 'Let's take care of our city,'" Pitts said.
He contacted city officials for help decide where they should start. The members knew they wanted to beautify homes but didn't know which homes needed the most help.
City officials helped locate homes whose owners could use help. Some homeowners applied for the program while others were offered help by the church.
The project started on Monday as over 500 congregation members donned red shirts with the Ogden and Washington Heights Baptist Church logos with the motto "Serve Ogden" on the shirts.
"If you just look for the red shirts and the dumpsters, you will find us," Pitts said.
Swarms of workers buzzed around 24 homes between 25th and 30th streets from Monroe to Harrison boulevards. Some projects were as simple as yard work but others were as extensive as building a new roof.
Every morning the group met at the church to divide up into teams of about 24 to set out to their respective home sites for the day. Pitts figures the church spent around $40,000 on the project, with all funds donated by congregation members.
"This has been awesome," said church member Dawn Fambro as she filled a cup with a plaster to fill gaps in a wall. She loves how the church congregation came together for the project, as well as neighbors who have joined the cause.
"It's important to take care of your own," Fambro said.
Church member Robin Ahrenstorff took the week off from work to help with the projects and said many other members did the same.
"We have done a lot of missions overseas and people take a week's vacation to do that, so we did the same thing to help out here," Ahrenstorff said.
Members from congregations in Japan and Boston have also spent the week in Ogden helping out.
"We have gone to help them before so we asked them to come our way this time," Pitts said.
"It's not the work that's important to us. It's the relationships," Pitts said. He has loved watching how the congregation members have come together and how friends have been made along the way.
"I have bank executives working alongside janitors," Pitts said. "We've had neighbors come out and want to participate where maybe they wouldn't have if we wouldn't have been here."
"It was just a blessing they came to us," said homeowner Jill Dodd, where a team spent the week working in the yard and painting the outside. She was impressed with the number of people who had the skills to solve every problem.
"Anything that comes up, there is someone specialized that can do it," Dodd said.
She and her husband bought the home in 2002 and have been slowly working to fix it up, but it takes time and money, she said.
"I love it here. I love Ogden and I think it's great how Ogden is getting so much better and moving in the right direction," Dodd said. She's worked right alongside the church members and enjoyed getting to know them and what they are doing for the community.
"Apparently God sent them to us," she said with a smile.
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