New Vision Renewable Energy Welcomes Saydam Properties Group and DMV Partners for Immersive Service & Partnership Visit

New Vision Renewable Energy recently welcomed leadership and team members from Saydam Properties Group, along with their community members from across the DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) region, to Philippi, West Virginia for a two-day immersive site visit focused on community development, youth opportunity, and collaborative impact.

Held May 8–9, the visit provided an opportunity for the Saydam Properties Group team, led by Executive Assistant Andrea Elkins (a West Virginia native) and CEO Sheena Saydam, to experience New Vision Village firsthand — a growing rural housing and workforce development model supporting vulnerable youth and young adults aging out of foster care. Saydam was joined by their community members, including Robert Scheer of Comfort Cares, whose participation underscored the strength of cross-regional collaboration in advancing New Vision's mission.

The visit began with a community cookout and networking gathering at New Vision's headquarters, followed by a tour of the future Girls Village site, a new expansion designed to provide safe housing, mentorship, and workforce pathways for young women transitioning into adulthood.

On the second day, participants engaged in an immersive service experience at New Vision Village, working alongside residents and staff to prepare the land and raise the roof of the next home — contributing directly to ongoing site development through landscaping, planting, and construction work around the youth housing community.

For Saydam, the experience offered a window into both the depth of need and the power of the model being built in Philippi:

"We come from a place abundant in material things and where the loving support of family is an inheritance we often forget is a privilege. Getting to see firsthand what is being built at New Vision- a real community with powerful resources for young men (and soon women) navigating what Allen Graham calls the profound and catastrophic loss of family- meant a great deal to all of us. We worked with residents and staff to prepare the land and raise the roof for the next home. All of us were given a window into lives we don't normally get to see. I have no doubt this experience changed us — particularly when we carried the roof trusses together, literally united beneath something we built with our own hands. The relationships formed that day, I am hopeful, will last for years. I am deeply grateful and full of excitement for what comes next, and eager to grow our group of volunteers." — Sheena Saydam, CEO, Saydam Properties Group

The visit also marked meaningful contributions to the village's growth and resident care. Saydam Properties Group presented New Vision with a $5,000 check in support of ongoing development, while Comfort Cares donated bedding for the village to help ensure residents have comfortable, welcoming spaces to call home.

Throughout the visit, New Vision staff shared the organization's broader vision for prevention, workforce development, affordable housing, and long-term community revitalization in rural West Virginia.

The visit reflects New Vision Renewable Energy's continued commitment to building cross-sector partnerships that create real pathways to housing stability, workforce participation, and long-term success for vulnerable youth in West Virginia.