I’m mere weeks away from one of the largest painting projects ever accomplished in a weekends’ time! Many of you wrote to me and suggested neighborhoods and cities across America that needed a new coat of paint, a proverbial makeover of a downtown section of a town.
Weeks after the last submission was reviewed, I selected Belleville, Illinois, a city full of beautiful people outside of St. Louis, MO, on the Illinois side of the Missouri River. This city is nearly 200 years old and boasts the longest Main Street in all of America. We’re going to set out to find enough volunteers to help me and The Home Depot to paint 15 blocks of their Main Street, treating each participating building to beautiful new coats of Glidden Exterior paints and all the trim that goes with it! This is no easy task and we’re hoping for thousands of volunteers in the Belleville area to help us on October 16th and 17th. This is the same city that has thousands of volunteers come together to help with their Art On The Square weekend, where hundreds of artists come to their city square and sell their art, one of the nations’ largest outdoor art shows. I like Belleville because of their community spirit, and their people, and like so many great cities in America, the sense of pride that you feel as you visit with people in town. We could go to so many cities with the cans of paint, and Ryobi Power Sprayers, 3M Blue Tape and DAP Caulking, but this city has so many buildings with so much character and in need of our attention and efforts.
Last year, I led a group of people to help me in a city in the Seattle area, Port Orchard, and it’s likely I’ll recover from this weekend and do it again in 2011 with The Home Depot.
Watch our progress with new postings right here, and you may be inspired to take this on yourself!
Click here for tips and tools from The Home Depot to start your own painting projects
© 2010
