Volunteers from two Greenup County, Ky. churches see no borders when it comes to beautifying the community.

About 230 members of Russell Christian Church and Raceland Christian Church did community work Saturday in Flatwoods, Russell, Raceland and Ironton as a part of the SHOUT program (Servants Helping Others Using Talent).

SHOUT was organized last year by Russell Christian Church member Ken Aulen and has grown significantly.

"We felt it was a good outreach," he said. "We started slow but actually caught fire pretty fast."

Last year, they had about 165 people participate, he said.

"People wanted to reach out to the community and make it a better place to work and live," he said.

Ironton Mayor Bob Cleary said he was happy to have them.

"We are constantly striving to make our communities one community not separated by the river," he said.

A group of 20 volunteers in Ironton worked on North Second Street and the bridge over Storms Creek painting the handrail, weed-eating and cleaning up the sidewalks.

Also, a group of teens worked at the Center Street boat ramp.

"This is more than a clean-up," Chuck Harper, Ironton resident and site leader, said. "It is a day of service that includes cleaning up, painting, maintenance and more.

"We have a lot of people from Ironton that attend the church," Harper

said of the motivation to cross the river to help. "We had more volunteers than we had jobs. It is very important to treat this as one community. It is really only a boundary in terms of government, not for commerce or people's lives. It is unfortunate there is that boundary because it hurts being able to get things accomplished."

Russell Christian Church has members from all over the Tri-State and the

volunteers are as equally scattered, he said.

"There are needs all over the world but we try to reach out in the community," Aaron Brown, Huntington, said. "There are no borders. We are just right across the bridge. This is still our community."

Ryan, 15, and Patrick Thorn, 11, Ashland, participated last year and said they had fun. They wanted help out again and it made no difference that it was in Ohio, Patrick said.

Aulen said next year they hope to get more churches involved and continue to expand the coverage. Jim Walker/The Ironton Tribune