By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
If you’ve been up to the Olive Hill Historical Society building recently, you may have noticed the neatly organized free books section in the entryway to the Carter County Public Library. Or you might have peeked into the space set aside for a future model railway display dedicated to Olive Hill’s days as a railroad town and noticed the cleanup that’s gone on in there.
It’s a big improvement, and it was all done in an afternoon, by a youth group from Williamston, North Carolina.
“We’re here this summer on our middle school mission trip,” explained Dustin Dodson, from Macedonia Christian Church, in Williamston. “It’s about 16 of us, from Williamston, and every year we take a weeklong mission trip with our middle school students, and then we take a week long trip with our high school students.”
“We just decided to come to Kentucky this year through a group called Praying Pelican Missions,” Dodson continued. “They had a site here in the Ashland area.”
They were in Olive Hill last Wednesday, working at the historical society building to clean up empty spaces, build shelving and book racks, and help organize the collection of free books, but they’ve been working across the region.
“We built a playground at a pre-school and daycare center that’s trying to open yesterday. Then today we’re here at the old Olive Hill High School, doing a lot of work in the basement, cleaning up, getting rid of some old wood from renovations and building them some new shelves to hold some of the books that they have in overflow here.”
They also did landscaping and cleanup out in front of the library entrance to the building, including removing some poison ivy from along the area under the hand rail.
“We were careful of that,” Dodson teased. “We have lots of poison ivy in North Carolina too.”
There had been a lot of dust, and a lot of sweat, said Sheree Hardison, who sat shelving books, and Caroline Wynn, who pushed a broom around the entry hall, but the work had been worthwhile. They said they weren’t sure what project they would be on after this, but they were glad to help in any way they could.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
