More than 2,000 people have volunteered with Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful and will be finishing paint jobs on 116 homes belonging to low-income senior and low-income disabled homeowners throughout Tacoma and Pierce County this Saturday.
Volunteer crews from churches, service clubs, businesses, unions, schools and government offices, as well as individuals who responded to newspaper ads, will be painting all over the Tacoma and Pierce County area.
Locations of the homes range from Bonney Lake and Puyallup to Lakewood; from Gig Harbor to Eatonville; Northeast Tacoma, East Side, West End, North End and South Tacoma.
Pierce County Superior Court judges and commissioners formed a crew this year. Their contact with the public on a daily basis is usually under unhappy circumstances, be it a divorce proceeding, criminal charges, an accident, etc.
Crew coordinator Judge Stephanie Arend said, “We sit on a bench elevated above the public, yet we are members of the community, and we want to contribute to the community in a real way. Paint Tacoma has provided us that opportunity. And our homeowner keeps telling us were a blessing from God.
Fifty crews this year are from religious congregations or organizations, including 12 from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Twenty-eight crews are from local businesses and employers (including schools and government offices, etc.). Local service clubs, including the Exchange Club, Key, Kiwanis, Lions, and Rotary, & various high-school service clubs, put together 15 crews. Six crews are from McChord Air Force Base.
Paint Tacoma-Pierce Beautiful is a program of Associated Ministries of Tacoma-Pierce County. Co-sponsors include the Exchange Club of Tacoma, the City of Tacoma, the City of Lakewood, and Pierce County.
Other major contributors include the Parker Paint Company, Washington Mutual Savings Bank, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, and the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation.
This is the nineteenth summer that homes are being painted by this program. It began in 1985 when some Tacoma city employees were looking for a summer project, and they came upon the idea of painting the home of a low-income senior.
They went to the Exchange Club of Tacoma for financial help with the project, and the club agreed on the condition they could also paint. The next summer the two groups painted two houses, and during the fourth summer, 14 homes were painted. In 1988, the project became a program of Associated Ministries of Tacoma-Pierce County, and under that management, the program has grown by leaps and bounds.
In addition to painting the homes, crews make minor repairs, such as replacing broken windows and rotten or broken stairs and siding.
In case of rain this Saturday – always a concern in the Pacific Northwest – paint day will be Saturday, August 16th.
