The shelter, which houses about 450 homeless, recently needed its chapel and men’s emergency shelter areas to be painted, but didn’t have the manpower to take on such a large project.
The Oklahoma City mayor’s office nominated the Oklahoma City shelter for the grant. The mayor’s office told several shelters about the project and City Rescue Mission was the quickest and most enthusiastic to respond, said Steve Hill, chief of staff to the mayor.
The grant only applied to a certain amount of square feet, and the shelter was allowed to pick where the paint and work crew were to focus their efforts.
“The walls hadn’t been painted in a while and had gotten kind of dirty and dusty, and a fresh coat of paint completely cleans it up and brightens it up,” said Jennifer Linck, City Rescue Mission community relations manager.
The faith-based nonprofit has a number of workers at the shelter that focus on painting and upkeep of the building, but they are so focused on smaller projects they don’t have time for anything else, Linck said.
About five workers painted the men’s emergency shelter white and the chapel gray Oct. 11 and 12 as a part of the grant.
“To have the grant and to have these people come in and do that, and knock these projects out in a day, or less than a day, it’s a huge help for us,” Linck said.
The initative plans to give paint makeovers to one shelter in each state and one in Washington, D.C., in the near future.
