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Good neighbors: Altoona church group volunteers clean up city neighborhood

By Conner Goetz 4 min read

On Wednesday afternoons throughout the month of May, groups of volunteers can be seen picking up trash, painting fences and repairing homes all around Fifth Avenue in Altoona for the Neighbors Helping Neighbors program organized by Overflow Church.

According to Pastor Aimee Burns, the monthlong annual program helps "beautify the neighborhood" adjacent to the church, often focusing on people with needs they cannot meet on their own.

This includes picking up litter, garden maintenance and a wide variety of handyman jobs, all carried out for free by church-organized volunteers.

A number of gardening projects at Jefferson Park behind the Fifth Avenue church are a recurring fixture of the cleanup itinerary, she said.

The initiative began on a smaller scale a little over a decade ago as a series of ad hoc community outreach efforts, but coalesced into a formal program in 2022, Burns said.

Now, the Neighbors Helping Neighbors event occurs annually, with an average of 100 volunteers meeting every Wednesday throughout the month of May to tackle a series of increasingly ambitious projects.

Preparation for the event begins early each year, Burns said, as church leaders walk around their neighborhood to identify homes that could benefit from some maintenance projects.

Then they meet with the respective property owners to gauge their openness to receiving support from the project and finally plan out which repair projects are the highest priority and assign teams of volunteers to get them done.

Every year, the church receives donations of tools and materials to complete the various scheduled projects from a number of sponsors and local donors, notably Mayor Matt Pacifico and Vice Mayor Dave Ellis.

In 2025, the sponsor list includes J.C. Orr & Son Inc., Leonard S. Fiore Inc., Jackson Hewitt, Greenwood Steak House, Stuckey Automotive and Burgmeier's Hauling, who donate two dumpsters for use each week of the cleanup effort, Burns said.

According to Burns, the annual cleanup event is central to Overflow's faith and ethos.

"Our mission is to join God on his mission to help people by finding hope in Jesus, and you can't do that if you're not willing to step outside and reach out to them and say 'we are here and you are loved and we want to help you,'" she said.

Myzick Clemons and his younger brother have attended all three weeks of the 2025 installment of the program, helping collect litter from the streets near the church.

"(Participating in the cleanup) is pretty fun, and you get to socialize with the people you're with," Clemons said.

Church member and volunteer Andy Johnson, alongside Mike Keller and Ethan Haigh, spent the first week of the 2025 program helping tear off a debilitated garage roof ahead of a full replacement, then switched to cleaning up a variety of debris and garbage from a nearby resident's backyard.

Johnson has attended the annual cleanup since the beginning and has worked on more than a dozen different projects around the neighborhood.

"Our goal is to help those in the community that have a need they don't have the ability to meet themselves, whether it be for medical or financial reasons," Johnson said.

According to Keller, it is their "duty" as followers of God to care for those in need.

One homeowner who received assistance from the project said he was incredibly thankful for the help he received in cleaning up waste from his backyard since a recent medical emergency left him unable to complete the work on his own.

"It's nice to see a blessing for once," he said.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors is open to the public and encourages anyone interested in participating to sign up over the phone at 814-389-1775 or online at lovealtoona.com

Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.

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