Repainting for Empowerment

Last week, TeamWorks Session 3 had the opportunity to visit The Empowerment Program, a nonprofit providing case management, support services, basic skills education, housing and resource coordination for women coming out of crisis situations. Whereas most of our other volunteer opportunities will be working directly with women, we had used our service hours that week to repaint several rooms and hallways at Empowerment. I had to wonder, before the project began, how much impact we would feel like we were making that night because we were serving the women who use The Empowerment Program "indirectly."

At the conclusion of just a couple hours of painting, we had managed to transform a hallway, spruce up a bathroom, and prepare an office for a staff member. The vast difference that just a couple coats of paint made to those facilities was impressive. Lindsey, the volunteer coordinator at The Empowerment Program, not only expressed her gratitude frequently, but also let us know how quickly the changes would be noticed by the staff and the women. Through her enthusiasm for our work, I realized that our time spent painting wouldn't affect the women "indirectly." Knowing that a group had been invested in their recoveries and their lives enough to donate their time to improve the facilities they use and to help the staff that they work with daily, will impact those women. The building they spend their days in is brighter, the staff has time to focus on programs and treatments instead of stained or incomplete walls. For these reasons, I felt our service at The Empowerment Program was more direct than I had ever anticipated.

For the other TeamWorks: Women's Services team members...what were your thoughts about the project before we started? Did these change after completing the project? How do you think the women reacted when they noticed the freshly painted spaces?

Vanessa