What a fresh coat of paint and a little yard work will do for a place.
Volunteers were out in force at the Kuu-us Crisis Line complex on Johnston Road last Saturday giving the old buildings a face lift.
Chief among the volunteers were six Dulux Paints staff at the site who helped paint the buildings. The business donated $15,000 worth of time and material to paint the buildings as part of a special international program to assist the less fortunate, Dulux official Cary Herbers said.
“We wanted to do it earlier this year but we had a late spring and summer is our busy season,” Herbers said
A coat of paint was applied to the administration building, the living units and the storage shed. The colour scheme blends with the neighbourhood, said Kuu-us executive director Elia Nicholson-Nave.
“It’s amazing to watch this blossom. It’s like the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae,” Nicholson Nave said.
It’s been a year since Kuu-us assumed ownership of the property via a federal program, which gave homeless initiative programs first crack at federal properties it was disposing of.
Kuu-us officials applied for the Adding Colour To People’s Lives program last year and were subsequently chosen. The program is national in scope and the initiative is part of the World Wide Dulux Movement to add colour to people’s lives in neighbourhoods around the globe, from North and South America to Europe and Asia, Herbers said.
Domestically, each Dulux Paints store independently selects a local organization to support. Kuu-us works with the homeless, operates transitional housing and maintains a crisis line. Supporting its application was a natural, Herbers said.
Nicholson-Nave admitted the move was rocky at first and that there was an air of NIMBY-ism when they moved in. But residents and businesses have slowly warmed to their presence. One resident even volunteered on Saturday.
Several of the complex’s residents were also out painting and tending to yard work.
“It’s all about a sense of home and sense of pride and ownership,” Nicholson-Nave said. “We feel like a part of here now.”
