The Presbytery of Minnesota Valleys

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The work team was started in 1996 by First Presbyterian Church in Foley. The team members’ first project was to build cabinets for the kitchen and shelves for the library of their new church. Since then they have branched out, doing diverse projects using talents from across the presbytery.

With at least one winter and one summer project every year, the team members keep busy. They have painted and helped equip a new United Church of Christ mission church in Matamoros, Mexico, installed a new roof and wall insulation on a Methodist church in Sulfur, Oklahoma, and prepared a playground that a Presbyterian church in Appalachia uses for a day-care center.

Just before Christmas in 2003, the team members built a small building for a homeless, eighty-two-year-old man who was spending the winter living in his car. For the project, they recruited volunteer help from the community, including a high school shop class.

In 2004 the team completed a major remodeling job at the presbytery office. Dubbed “Project Transformation,” fifty-eight volunteers worked for five days enlarging the meeting space, building closets, installing accessible doors, and putting in a new sidewalk.

The work team stayed within the bounds of the presbytery in 2005. During the winter volunteers remodeled and updated the manse for First Presbyterian in Redwood Falls. Their summer project was building an addition to accommodate a wheelchair-accessible lift for Union Presbyterian Church in Brooten, a congregation of fifteen members.

The Presbytery of Minnesota Valleys has 68 churches with 10,993 members.