Thanks to Alex's GPS, Rita, we were able to find the location with plenty of time to spare. While we waited for things to get started, we caught up with some other VISTAs outside of the convent, and chatted about what we'd been up to. This little huddle of laughter and fun was a great way to start the day.
Around 1
0:00 a.m. we were split into groups of two and assigned a room of the convent to paint. Alex and I worked as a team to repaint a little room on the second floor. Take a look at the before shot (at left).
It's a cute little room with a bed, two sewing machines, two ironing boards, a lamp, and a fan. We piled the little stuff onto the bed and moved everything to the center of the room, away from the walls. During this process, we learned how to collapse an antique ironing board and we even had a visit from an outside guest:
After a little rearranging, we got to work taping off the room in preparation for painting. Alex and I didn't consider ourselves skilled enough to freehand it! Once every inch of the trim, windows, outlets, and door frames were covered, we located some paint supplies and got to work. There weren't a lot of supplies to work with, so we grabbed two brushes, a gallon of white paint, and a gallon of light green paint. We started by painting the trim around the room until rollers and trays became available. Unfortunately, we never did get rollers, so we left quite a bit of work to do for Team B coming in after lunch.
After a couple of hours of work, here's what Alex and I accomplished in our room with a roll of tape, a couple of paint brushes, and two gallons of paint:
There were about 14 other teams of 2 or 3 working in similar rooms, accomplishing similar results! Here we are outside of the convent:
At lunch time the second group of volunteers came in and we went to the Columbus Public Library for lunch and a VISTA meeting. Overall, it was a great (but exhausting!) day and we were proud to have been a part of it.
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