VOLUNTEERS PIN DOWN DETAILS OF APPALACHIA AID\Ventura County group help poor.

Byline: Alicia Doyle Daily News Staff Writer

He couldn't remember their names, but the memory of an impoverished, elderly couple he met more than a decade ago in Central Appalachia stays with Paul Witman.

The wife and her husband, a former miner, lived alone in their hilltop home. They had grown accustomed to their way of life - trying to fill the basic needs in a house with no running water or bathroom.

"They had lived there their whole lives," said Witman, who was in Appalachia in 1982 as part of a project that helps poverty-stricken families. "Somehow, they evolved to where they were."

Since then Witman has gone back many times to the same mountains, where he and other Ventura County residents try to make the lives of Appalachia's poor a little better.

During their one-week trips, the volunteers repair leaky roofs, put up sheet rock, or paint the inside and outside of houses. Volunteers also have replaced broken window panes, built septic tanks and added entire rooms to homes.

In May, 18 people from Simi Valley and one from Thousand Oaks will participate once again, along with Witman, in the Appalachia Service Project (ASP) - a nonprofit project in which volunteers repair and improve homes owned by poor families.

Nationwide, more than 8,000 volunteers work with ASP each year.

Preparing for their work trip, members of Simi Valley's United Methodist Church have raised $12,000 since June 1995 to pay for their flight to the East Coast, where they will arrive with their duffel bags packed with bedrolls, toiletries and mandatory tape measures, nail aprons and hammers.

Believing that safe, adequate and sanitary housing is a basic human right, volunteers give time and resources to make impoverished households warmer, safer and drier.

"The power of the experience is intense," Witman said. "You come back with a greater understanding of poverty and your own wealth. You learn that money is not everything."

The service project works for the poor in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.

ASP was founded by Tex Evans, a United Methodist pastor serving at the Henderson Settlement in eastern Kentucky. Evans matched the needs for improved housing for poor people in the area - hungry children, the elderly and the disabled - with the needs of others to serve.

The program officially began in the summer of 1969 at Union College in Barbourville, Ky. By the 1990s, the program has grown from 50 volunteers to more than 7,000.

"It makes you feel good to stand back and look at something you've finished, and know that you've helped someone," said Chuck Harman, 76, of Simi Valley, who made his first trip to Appalachia in 1994. A retired aircraft builder for Lockheed, Harman will make his second trip to Appalachia with the group in May.

Harman said that Appalachia is a land where the wealth of natural resources - mainly coal and timber - makes the poverty level all the more striking, Harman said. He said that many of the region's problems may be attributed to absentee landowners, who extract the riches and take the profits elsewhere.

Born in West Virginia in the 1920s, Harman also is familiar with stereotypes of the natives as moonshine-guzzling, banjo-picking hillbillies trapped in hopelessly backward conditions.

"Most people don't realize who these people are or what this area is all about," Harman said. "It's one of the wealthiest places in the world when it comes to resources. The people are very gracious. They just can't help themselves due to finances, age, disability and circumstance."

Harman believes his occasional ASP trips give him an opportunity to help his native area.

"It was my chance to go back home and do something for those people," Harman said. "When you leave, and see the smiles on their faces as you go, you feel like you've donated your time and service to the Lord."

The trip in May will be Ruth Canfield's first visit to Appalachia, a place she envisions as green and hilly, where needy people remain secluded in the mountains.

A teacher who lives in Thousand Oaks, Canfield has been interested in visiting Appalachia since reading "Christy," a book by Catherine Marshall about a teacher who goes to a small village in the mountains to help the poor.

"I've read so many stories about people living back in the hills for years who never come out," Canfield said. "I hope to get to know a little bit more about the people there and do what I can to help."

Witman made his first trip to Appalachia in 1979, when he was a senior in high school. He heard about the project from a Rubidoux United Methodist Church minister.

Since 1982, Witman has organized trips independently, recruiting high school youth groups, college groups, individuals and families to respond to the needs of the poor. The venture in May will be the sixth trip Witman has organized.

Witman's motivation for organizing the trips stems from his first experience in Appalachia almost 20 years ago.

"It gives other folks the chance to see the things I saw," Witman said. "It was a great opportunity for me as a high school student. And aside from the spiritual and altruistic reasons, it is a lot of fun."

Had he never visited Appalachia, Witman said his life would be different.

Not long ago, he and his wife, Barbara, were looking at houses in Simi Valley - some with 10-foot ceilings that cost more than a quarter of a million dollars.

"We thought: How could we morally justify living in a $300,000 house and work with people who are living in poverty," Witman said. "Ultimately, going to Appalachia is about giving. . . . The people who go there always believe they are going to give, but when they come home, they feel like they've received more than they gave."

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Photo (1--SAC and Simi editions only) Volunteers from Simi Valley train for home-repair work they will do for low-income people in Appalachia in May. From left are Al Schreck, Chuck Harman and Steve Kingsinger. Jeff Goldwater/Daily News (2--SAC edition only) Chet Hamilton drills a hole for electrical wiring as he practices repairs. (3--Color only in Conejo and Simi editions) Fixing a roof are, from left, Virgil Stites, Joe Calhoun and Chuck Harman, all preparing for volunteer jobs.