About 60 West Virginia University students spent Saturday working at flood-recovery and rebuilding sites across Lewis and Upshur counties, according to Lewis County Commission President Agnes Quinn Queen.
The students were serving with UNTO, a relief organization whose mobile unit appeared with the group. Queen said the volunteers worked at individual job sites during the day on August 29. She met the students and their team leader at WVU Jackson's Mill after the work was finished and before they returned to the university.
Queen said the students talked about what they had encountered at their assigned sites. Her update did not name the households, list the exact tasks completed at each location or provide a county-by-county count, so those details should not be inferred from the overall turnout.
The deployment adds a sizable university volunteer group to the long-term recovery effort more than a month after the July 21 flooding. Queen thanked Steve Baker, the participating students and the group's leaders for bringing the team into the two counties.
Residents who still need cleanup or rebuilding help should use the current request forms and provider contacts on the City of Weston's Lewis County flood-recovery resource page rather than trying to locate volunteer job sites directly. Volunteer schedules, available skills and project conditions can change as recovery moves into the rebuilding phase.