It always takes a strong group to paint a home with Habitat’s A Brush With Kindness program and it was no different on Saturday October 6^th when volunteers from Ring Container once again joined Habitat Riverside, together with the Ramona High School Habitat Campus Chapter, to paint the home of Nick, a disabled veteran, and his wife Diana. They are currently living solely on Nick’s Social Security and Diana’s unemployment. Tough enough to pay the bills in their situation and nothing left to hire someone to paint their home. There were also some repairs that needed to be made due to a faulty gutter system which caused some wood rot damage to the trim and siding.

The group from Ring Container showed up first in their Habitat Riverside t-shirts ready to help! We also welcomed Salina, a Habitat homeowner working toward fulfillment of her sweat equity time. 25 volunteers took their paint brushes, rollers, paint, ladders and extension poles and circled the home. They’ve done this with us before so they knew what to expect and they went right at it.

The Ramona High School Habitat Chapter volunteers arrived as scheduled with their advisors and tackled the trim work. The house had six awnings plus all the carport and patio supports that needed to be painted. These students have also worked with us on several projects and they are getting pretty darn good at the detail work so this worked out perfectly. Within minutes of their arrival they all had cups of paint and brushes and were brushing in unison to get these areas completed.

Nick, the homeowner kept coming out to look at the paint job and cheered on the volunteers. He was amazed at the number of volunteers that were surrounding his home. At times it felt like painting bees had swarmed the house! Diana has a green thumb and loves plants and gardening. The groups had to maneuver around all of her lovely potted plants and trees but they never let the obstacles deter them from their work. The walls, trim, all the awnings and those hard to reach areas were completed by both groups in a little more than three hours.  It was a fun time for this small village of volunteers who managed to eat lunch and still not miss a beat.

When the home was completed, Nick and Diana profusely thanked the volunteers. They loved the colors and their newly painted home. The volunteers were just thrilled to be able to make a difference for this lovely couple.

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