Agency Details:[ View Opportunity ]
Paint Tacoma/Pierce County Beautiful
Let me introduce you to Associated Ministries, a part of the worldwide ecumenical and interfaith movement. While serving the people of Pierce County and its many cities and towns, Associated Ministries networks with the religious communities of this region, our nation and the world. Our mission is to create community that is humane, compassionate, and just. Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful, located in Tacoma Washington, is a program of Associated Ministries.
Description:
Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful organizes volunteer crews to paint the homes of low-income senior and low-income people with disabilities in Tacoma/Pierce County, Washington. Our goal is to paint about 100 homes each summer. Volunteer with us and make a truly visible difference. We'll paint as many homes as we have crews, so if you form or join a crew, that mean one more person will get their home painted. We supply the paint and volunteers supply the labor. Painting is generally done in July and August, finishing up by August 15. Please join us and make an meaningful gift of time to someone in need.
History:
In the summer of 1985, some City of Tacoma employees were looking for a morale-boosting project for the summer when they found a low-income senior whose home desperately needed paint. They asked the Exchange Club of Tacoma if they would buy the paint, and the club agreed on one condition: they wanted to paint too, not just put money toward the effort. They had such a good time doing it that they painted two homes the next summer; by the fourth year, enough people joined them to boost the number to 14 homes, and the rest is history. In 2006, we had enough crews to paint 82 homes!
Contact person: Sallie Shawl, Program Director, (phone), (email)
Office fax number: (253) 383-2672
Address:
Web Site: http://www.paintbeautiful.org
| Last updated on January 15, 2010 |
Volunteer Reflections
Post Your Own!
Paint Tacoma/Pierce County Beautiful
5
Overall Experience
Spirit building, rewarding, it matters
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Volunteering provides an outlet for my heart
Nothing makes me feel better about my life than volunteering. Working on something that really matters and doing it because it really matters (not because you're getting a paycheck) is what makes volunteering the closest thing to "A PERFECT EVENT'" that I have found on this earth.
posted by Pooh Bear on May 3, 2005 |
Paint Tacoma/Pierce County Beautiful
5
Overall Experience
The most teambuilding experience we ever had
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Block group paints a neighbor's house
We were the first Hilltop Action Coalition Block Group to sign on as a Paint Tacoma/Pierce Beautiful crew. We decided to paint one of the houses on our block. A senior citizen who had been active in the community most of her life was now suffering from agoraphobia (fear of "open spaces"), and because of that (and other health issues) had become a shut-in.
She applied for the program, and was accepted, but didn't have a "crew" to paint her house; her neighbors stepped up to the plate and volunteered to do the work. Our block group, which had worked together on many issues considered itself close. Most of the neighbors knew at least a handful of the other neighbors, but nothing brought us closer than this experience.
Stay-at-home mothers brought their babies over in strollers while they helped us paint, in other cases; grandmothers ran a mini-daycare on the lawn while the family painted. Men returned from work and joined in the painting until their dinner was ready (and came back with their family after dinner). The biggest surprise was the young people, a few days our biggest crowd of volunteers were the young people, one day it was 10, the next it was 15. Talk about Tom Sawyer!
All in all, it was the most uniting experience our block has ever had. People had the opportunity to talk in a manner they'd never done before. It made everyone feel good about everyone else, it opened lines of communication with some of our "at risk" youth, lines that still exist years later.
But for the applicant, it brought her out onto her porch, it started conversations with her neighbors, it changed her "mood", and probably helped her deal with her symptomology. We found that she came out of her house a lot more often, had visitors from around the neighborhood in to visit, and gave her freedom that she had lost.
If you are looking for something that will bring your block together, I recommend it highly.
Jeanie Peterson, block co-captain, 1200 block of South Grant Avenue
posted by Pooh Bear on May 3, 2005 |
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