We are sending out a big THANK YOU to the Kaiser IT group for coming out and exchanging their key strokes for brush strokes. They joined us on the 30th at the Village Grove Mobile Home Community in Corona to paint the home of seniors John and Loretta who are no longer able to take care of their home the way they did in the past due to those pesky limitations that come with age.
Gotta’ love those stylish painting suits the Kaiser folks brought to protect their clothes! Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell them it gets really hot inside those suits especially when the noon temps reach into the 100 degree mark. Didn’t take too long to dump the jump suits and sacrifice the clothing. Several guys from the group were from Atlanta. We loved their enthusiasm for taking time out to paint this home and then flying back to Georgia the same day. Chris, one of the Atlanta guys came dressed all in black and succeeded to paint without getting much paint on himself. Even though we did have to give him some painting education. He must be used to heat and humidity since we did not see him sweat as much as the other guys working on the sunny side of the home.
Since the Kaiser group was smaller than our usual painting groups, we put out a call to our Habitat volunteer database for another 10 people to help us out and sure enough, 10 more volunteers joined in to help including Salina, a future Habitat homeowner who is eagerly working away at her sweat equity requirements. Our volunteers ROCK! Our homeowner John brought out Gatorade and extra ice to keep everyone hydrated. As usual, we had plenty of water on hand but who turns down Gatorade when working in the sun? His wife Loretta, a retired nurse, fretted about the volunteers working so hard in the heat but they were having too much fun to let the heat knock them out. You can always tell when colleagues enjoy their work because they tease each other and laugh a lot. This group was no exception and the regular volunteers, some of whom have worked on multiple projects with us joined right in with the banter.
The team from Kaiser finished painting the walls and most of the trim and headed back to their jobs and the airport around 12:30. The rest of the group stayed to finish the trim, complete some final touch ups and move all of John & Loretta’s patio furniture back into place for them. Loretta kept telling the group that it was a “Blessed Day “for them and all for all of the volunteers who took time out of their busy lives to help by painting their home. So true.
