The homeowner Andrew is an 86 years old veteran who has lived in his home with his wife Mary Ann since the early 60’s. Andrew walks with a cane and Mary Ann is bedridden and uses a wheel chair. Their daughter Renee takes care of them both; however, she is also disabled. Andrew and his family were in desperate need and were unable to paint their home. Andrew said the last time his home was painted was over 25 years ago.

Their home needed some much deserved new paint. A great thing about this is that the family qualified for an A Brush With Kindness project paint day. As you may have noticed that most of these blogs on the Habitat for Humanity Riverside website are about mobile home ABWK projects; however, Habitat Riverside does do work on single-family houses as well. It was a treat and a blessing for the volunteers to experience working on a single-family house and meet Andrew, Mary Ann and Renee. Some of our volunteers for this ABWK project were from Riverside’s Economic Development Agency EDA and others were volunteers from the community.

The days heading to the paint day on Saturday, the weather was very hot; however, on the morning of the ABWK, the weather was colder and clouds covered the skies in Riverside. This allowed the volunteers to stay a bit longer than other groups have done in the past, and since this paint day is on a single-family house and not a mobile home, the group needed that extra time to paint due to the larger structure. In all we had 9 volunteers and three individuals from Habitat Riverside. Once the safety briefing and traditional devotional prayer finished, the group went to work painting. Usually the volunteers paint the walls first and later start on the trim of the home, but in this case we had separate teams paint the walls, trim and gable simultaneously.

 At the end of the project day the volunteers from the EDA and the community came to the front of the home and met Andrew, his wife Mary Ann and daughter Renee. After quick pleasant greetings the group picture was taken. The volunteers helped clean up and anther great ABWK project day was accomplished. Even though Andrew could not paint his home, his home did not need to stay in that position. Here at Habitat Riverside we are all about helping our veterans and helping those who cannot physically paint their own homes. Thank you Andrew for serving this great county. This is but a little we could give back to you.