Jorge Macias brushed dirt from a window sill before painting it at Community Kitchen on Friday morning. The kitchen got a free paint job through the Color Care Across America campaign.Charlie Hughes' face lit up Friday when he talked about the free painting that Color Care Across America was doing at the Chattanooga Community Kitchen.
"It's one of those God things when you want something and all of a sudden here it is," Hughes, executive director of the kitchen, said with a smile.
The Chattanooga Community Kitchen was among 51 emergency shelters across the country to benefit from volunteers offering free paint jobs. The project is the result of a partnership involving Benjamin Moore Paints, Home Pros Complete Home Services, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Painting & Decorating Contractors of America.
The partners wanted to do something to assist and bring attention to the increasing number of homeless families in the country.
About 40 percent of the homeless people in Chattanooga are families, according to officials with the Interfaith Homeless Network.
Benjamin Moore Paints contributed paint, the other groups offered professional volunteer painters and the Conference of Mayors selected a shelter from each state and Washington, D.C., to benefit from the effort.
The Chattanooga Community Kitchen was selected out of all emergency shelters in Tennessee, said Bob Wood, Benjamin Moore's Southeast market sales representative.
The paint company contributed about $800 worth of materials and estimated about $2,000 in volunteer labor at the kitchen, Wood said. Workers painted the kitchen and dining room areas and also put a coating of clear polyurethane over the kitchen's mural to protect it from further chips and scrapings.
"It's time for a painting," said 67-year-old Willie Whaley, of Chattanooga, who spoke while waiting for the sack lunch the kitchen issued in the day room while painters worked in the dining area.
"It helps because it's more clean. Not only that, I appreciate what they do for the homeless," Whaley said.
Hughes said he hopes having a brighter, cleaner-looking shelter helps make the people who visit it feel brighter, too.
The day center last was painted nearly three years ago. Hughes said he wanted to paint the dining area then, but he had no paint, money nor manpower to do the work.
Then "Benjamin Moore comes along and says they want to provide the paint and the people to paint something," said Hughes. "[Then they ask] do we have anything that needs painting, and so we're just thrilled to death."