Outside the Williams home on River Road on Saturday, volunteers from Suffolk Presbyterian Church and West End Baptist Church measured, sawed and drilled to build a wheelchair ramp leading up to the back door.

Inside, Gary Williams fixed lunch for Nancy Williams, his 97-year-old mother, who is the oldest member at Suffolk Presbyterian Church.

“It just brings a tear to your eye,” Gary Williams said, looking out the window at the workers.

Nancy Williams is no longer able to go down the three steps by herself and had started avoiding outings for fear of falling, her son said.

“This should improve her,” he said. “I’m so glad they’re doing it.”

The ramp-building team was only one of several teams from the two churches that fanned out across the city doing projects on Friday and Saturday. Today, the congregations will worship together at West End.

It’s all part of Operation Inasmuch, a nationwide effort that the two churches have taken on locally for the past three years. The name comes from Matthew 24:40, where Jesus says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (King James Version)

Other projects included a 25-cent yard sale, hygiene kits delivered to the Western Tidewater Free Clinic, sewing comfort kit bags for nursing home residents and plotting gravesites at the Oaklawn Cemetery. A team also gathers to pray for the projects, the volunteers and the recipients.

All the projects are no cost to the recipients.

“They said I don’t have to pay them, but I gave some money so next year they can help somebody else,” Gary Williams said.

A love offering taken at the Sunday service will help defray the costs of a soccer camp being held at West End Baptist Church this week.

Jack Stoughton, a retired engineer who says he does construction “once a year for fun,” helped lead the construction team at the Williams home.

“It’s really to press home in an active way our commitment to, as it says, the least of these,” said the Suffolk Presbyterian member.

Children ages 9 to 17 also joined the several adults who were working on the construction project.

“This is a great opportunity to bring our young folks in,” Stoughton said. “It opens their minds to the possibilities.”

Madeline Robinson, 16, was one of those helping with the construction of the ramp. She wore earrings made to look like screws for the occasion.

“I’ve done it for the past two years, and I like doing it,” she said, adding she chooses a different type of project every year.

“It went wonderful,” her mother, Cindy Robinson, a co-coordinator of the event, said after it was over. “We had a few more workers this year, and this is the biggest ramp that we’ve ever done.”

When the ramp was completed, Gary Williams carefully pushed his mother’s wheelchair down the ramp, and she wielded a pair of dull scissors to cut a ribbon. He then gently guided the chair into the yard, and mother and son thanked the volunteers.