Lewisberry, Pa. - After several church missions to Kentucky and the Carolinas, Robin Shearer and her family were used to helping people in need. What surprised her was finding those same needs in her own backyard.

"I didn't realize there were people in our community without electricity, without heat, with houses that were falling apart," Shearer said.

That was three years ago when Friends and Neighbors of Pennsylvania was launched from her Lewisberry home. The calls for help haven't stopped since. "The basic needs, things we don't think about, when you don't have toilet paper in your house and you have to give each kid a square," Shearer said.

From a makeshift warehouse on her own property, Shearer disperses donated personal, laundry and school supplies, along with odds and ends furniture, to those just trying to hold on. Next door is the Red Land Community Food Bank.

"If people are hungry, or they need supplies, that needs to come first," she said. "So once those needs are pretty much met, then we can start working on their home."

Uninhabitable houses are made homes again, thanks to an army of church and school volunteers mobilized and united by the Friends and Neighbors group. Shearer says area businesses have been generous with building materials, including a large load of lumber recently used to bring new steam generators to Three Mile Island.

Shearer believes her Christian faith put her in a position to help others and, in spite of some health issues of her own, says this program is just what the doctor ordered. "I really am blessed," she said. "My husband has a job. We have health care. I have a house. So there are days I move a little slower, that's OK."

On the Web: www.friendsandneighborsofpa.org.

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