In honor of MLK, volunteers make repairs in old Fort Worth neighborhood

Things have been hard for Doris Cobb recently. Her garbage disposal broke, the oven quit working, and the refrigerator started leaking.

Her house in the 1940s era Greenway neighborhood also had plumbing problems in the bathroom and a door that didn’t lock.

“I lost my husband and he was my worker,” she said. “It’s so expensive to have someone come out and fix stuff.”

But on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Cobb was all smiles as TCU students Stefani Turner and Helena Selassie and Bedford’s Emmanuel Presbyterian Church member Neal Morris went room to room, fixing everything.

“It means so much to me,” Cobb said. “I’m telling you, I appreciate it so much.”

Turner, a freshman studying mechanical engineering, installed the new door handle and lock while Selassie used mounting tape to fix the water line on the fridge.

“I thought it was really important because we do get a day off from school,” Turner said. “It’s not just the day off, though, it’s the reason behind it — Martin Luther King.”

An army of TCU students, about 40 of them, arrived via coach bus just after 11 a.m. as part of the sixth annual Tarrant Churches Together MLK Day of Service, a series of community service projects that were done Monday across Tarrant County.

“Volunteers young and old, from a diverse range of churches, neighborhoods and races, all come together each year to give back through this event and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Melinda Veatch, executive director of Tarrant Churches Together.

The 6:8 Home Repair Project is a partnership among Trinity Habitat for Humanity, the city of Fort Worth, the Greenway Neighborhood Association and 6:8, a mission established in the neighborhood by Emmanuel Presbyterian.

The project’s name is a reference to the Bible verse from Micah 6:8, which reads: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with your God.

The church members and TCU students dispersed throughout the neighborhood, just north of downtown, fixing rotted trim, tearing down old fences and sanding chipped paint off front steps.

Elsie Caldwell has lived 50 years in her home — wearing yellow paint applied by Trinity Habitat for Humanity about two years ago. On MLK Day, Caldwell enlisted the help of John Field, from Emmanuel Presbyterian, and others to replace sections of the rotting red fence in the back yard.

“It’s been there so long, it needs replacing,” Caldwell said. “It certainly will make it look better. These houses were built way back and you have to do work to keep it up.”

Emmanuel has a permanent presence in the neighborhood at the 6:8 House, a structure built by Habitat for Humanity. They have summer lunch programs for children and other mission activities there.

“The people who have lived here have lived here a long time,” Field said. “They’ve been able to keep crime out. We decided to have a mission out here.”

Mirko Murillo, a freshman studying history at TCU, said he wanted to give back to the community on MLK Day.

“Just walking around the neighborhood, looking at everything that’s going on, it promotes a strong sense of unity with everything,” Murillo said as he yanked nails out of an old fence board at Caldwell’s house.

At the eastern edge of the neighborhood, heavy tractors, cranes and excavators are busy rebuilding Interstate 35W as part of the North Tarrant Express 35W project. The construction has temporarily closed off access on the eastern side of Greenway. But residents who have lived there for decades are used to that — I-35W sliced through the neighborhood in the late 1950s, taking out a few houses.

Earlier this month, Fort Worth recognized the Greenway Neighborhood Association with the Mayor’s Civic Engagement and Community Collaboration Award and the Mayor’s Health and Wellness Award.

But on MLK Day, longtime residents were just thrilled to have some helping hands working to honor the slain civil rights leader.

“A lot of people here in the neighborhood don’t have the money to get it fixed,” said Charlotte Peoples as TCU students prepared to install new trim on her home. “It means a lot for the students to come out and volunteer their time.”

This story was originally published January 18, 2016 at 7:06 PM with the headline "In honor of MLK, volunteers make repairs in old Fort Worth neighborhood."