After a day of mountains and serving dinner, we switched gears today and headed to an apartment complex affiliated with Open Door. Jon, the owner of the apartment complex, had been down on his luck and the owner of Nordic Arms Apartment Complex offered him a managing position for as long as they liked what he and his crew was doing, keeping them one step away from homelessness. Open Door teamed up with Jon in an effort to ensure that homelessness never became a reality for them. As long as the owner of Nordic Arms approved of what he was doing to renovate the complex and keep it nice, Jon would be able to stay. And that's where we came in!
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| Nordic Arms Apartments |
Our job for the day was to completely repaint an entire three-story stairwell of the complex. Sounds easy, right? It was not. We had to completely tape off every single edge—carpet where the floor met wall, doorknockers, fire extinguishers—you name it, we taped it. Even Dawn's arm. Our next step was to completely paint everything white—giving the outdated wallpaper, scratched up rails, and mismatched doors a new clean look. Dawn and Chima headed outside to spray paint the railing outside of the doors. Michelle, Joe, Alicia, and April grabbed rollers for the walls and ceilings. Enyu, Liz, and Sam grabbed paintbrushes for finer painting. Ellen and Kevin put duct tape and painter's tape everywhere.
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Spraypainting each other the front gate |
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| Taping off the floors |
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| Painting the ceiling |
With the 80s music cranked up, we powered through most of the stairwell by lunchtime. Jon rewarded us with classic Mexican Coke bottles, and after lunch we put the finishing touches on everything. Jon was so impressed with our work that he requested the phone number of our "principal". After a quick photo with Jon and his crew, we headed back home for a well-deserved rest and an Italian dinner made by Kevin!
-Michelle and Alicia (plus Liz, Dawn, Ellen, Joe, Chima, Kevin, Enyu, April, and Sam)
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