IUPAT Paint Students Help Habitat for Humanity

Mt. Vernon, WA - 03/21/2005

Habitat for Humanity grew out of a grassroots ministry outreach initiative designed to provide housing for the needy. Now it is one of the United States' leading homebuilders, and the only worldwide nonprofit organization dedicated to the elimination of poverty and substandard housing, Habitat raises funds and mobilizes other resources, including volunteer labor, to build homes. It has helped over forty thousand families move up from substandard living quarters to become proud homeowners. To continue its initiative, Habitat has joined forces with Job Corps and it has proven to be an effective partnership.

In late March, IUPAT Paint Instructor Julie Porter and students from the Ft. Semoce Job Corps Center volunteered their skills to complete the finishing work at two Habitat homes in the state of Washington.

The students prepped the interior structures by filling the nail holes and other uneven metal surfaces with plaster mix and then sanded it over for a smooth finish needed for the painting coatings. The students used their newly-learned skills in bazooka gun taping to roll and plow angle cuts to cover windows, door jams, floorboards, vents, receptacles and other fixtures. They then had to carefully mask areas targeted for meticulous paint application. The students completed the finishing work by applying double coats of different color paints to the interior of the homes.

Porter explained that as students participate in a project of this magnitude, they not only gain real work experience and good work ethics, but personal confidence as well. They also receive personal gratification from knowing that their work helped to provide safe and decent homes for needy families.