Two Gifts: Of Paint and Through Paint

It has become a tradition for many groups to memorialize September 11th by participating in acts of good works. This is in keeping with the spirit of togetherness that overtook America in the wake of 9/11/01.

The Columbus Catholic Worker was a site for over 70 AmeriCorps members and supervisors to be the beneficiary of their generous gift this year. Two groups of approximately 35 people each worked about 4 hours that day.

The focus was on the upstairs: Bedrooms were painted creatively and tastefully. Most now have two-tone color schemes and lively touches. Some of the rooms previously had a potential health hazard with large cracks and chunks of paint falling off--this is especially a concern as this 50 year old building no doubt has leaded paint on the bottom layers.. These were scraped and sealed under a layer of new paint.

Pictured above is the famous purple room.

A lot more than paint got put onto the structure of the Catholic Worker that day. With so many AmeriCorps members and supervisors working with us, we were asked if we would like to host an AmeriCorps*VISTA member of our own! A VISTA member is one who fulfills a 1 or 2 year commitment, working on a stipend, to help local agencies like ours develop our capacity for service. Developing new programs and building infrastructure so that our group can grow is the mission of a VISTA member.

We gladly accepted this generous offer and it took all of 5 minutes to discern a candidate: Joan, our master painter and Catholic Worker member who has given so much to the community so far: Organizing the canning classes, gardening, coordinating the Free Store with Bev, and numerous other projects. She had just remarked earlier that day that she may have to limit her involvement at the Catholic Worker due to getting an outside job--not so fast!

Smiling above is Joan, Master Painter and soon-to-be AmeriCorps*VISTA member!

Here is a group shot of the morning crew.

Pictures by VISTA member Miles.