James River Church, volunteers complete service projects at Joplin, Webb City schools

Kimberly Barker, The Joplin Globe, Mo.
·3 min read

Jun. 26—More than 1,000 volunteers took part this weekend in James River Church's Project Partnership, a summer program that aims to give back to school districts throughout Southwest Missouri.

Initially launched in Springfield 24 years ago, Project Partnership is a growing community partnership between the church and schools in the cities where it has campuses. Volunteers tackle projects that may not be included in the schools' regular maintenance schedules or budgets.

Tasks this year included landscaping around elementary schools, painting walls and deep cleaning buses. This was the program's third year offered in Joplin and the first time that it was expanded to include the Webb City School District.

James River Church has six locations — three in Springfield, one in Joplin, an online campus and a metaverse campus. Volunteers participated in Joplin, Webb City and Springfield, as well as through virtual events nationwide and internationally.

"We just want to meet a need," said Devin McDowell, assistant pastor at James River Church in Joplin.

Alex McDowell, assistant pastor of the James River Joplin campus, said Project Partnership is the church's way of expressing love and appreciation for area communities.

"Teachers and administrators who are involved in the schools do so much for our community, so this is our way of helping out and giving back to the schools," she said.

In Webb City, teams painted rooms at Webb City High School and outdoors at the playground near Webb City Middle School.

"That particular group from James River Church has put in volunteer man-hours and time into local schools for the past several years as a community outreach project," said Jeff Wilkie, the new principal at Webb City High School, in a statement. "This summer they happen to be helping Webb City High School out by doing some painting and 'refreshing' in a few rooms throughout the building for us. We're very thankful for the help that they are providing and the investment that they are making in our students and the facilities that serve them."

James River Church teams also met at Junge Stadium on Saturday to deep clean more than 70 school buses for Joplin. Alex McDowell said Joplin's entire bus fleet was also cleaned and sanitized last year, and it made a huge difference.

"We typically try to knock out these projects in half a day because we have so many volunteers giving up their time; we are able to do what would normally take a really long time for smaller groups," she said. "Last year after we cleaned Joplin's buses, they said that had one of calmest years on the buses. We're hoping that's because we came out and did that."

Joplin's incoming assistant superintendent of operations, Matt Harding, said in a statement, "As a district, we are very appreciative for this local partnership with James River Church. This event has made an impact on the community and Joplin Schools for several years."

Conner Lehman, of Joplin, has volunteered with Project Partnership for the past three years and helped clean the school's bus fleet. He described the experience as rewarding, and hopes the program continues to expand throughout Jasper County.

"I love the opportunity to really make a difference in the community and not just talk about it, but actually go out and do it," he said. "We may not get to talk to every single student who go to these schools, but we can do something that can impact all of them. Even if they never know who did it, we still get to make that better for them."