Another artistic imprint

ShareFest gets help from so many vital professionals and visionaries, and this is just one of them. Vanesa Andrade is a accomplished artist who has been involved with community beautification for years. On Saturday, she lent her skills to ShareFest and left her mark — in the form of murals — on a local preschool and community center.

This is what she had to say:

Dear friends, I need to share my experience with you, about Saturday, May 2: These are the Murals I created for Alta Vsta Preschool, Redondo Beach, and for Greenbelt Wilmington Community Center with the amazing participation of the community! It was such a amazing experience!

Teachers, children, parents, neighbors were all so happy to give their time and great energy to embellish these buildings that are part of their everyday life! At the end of the day I was so tired but so happy that when  I closed my eyes and I kept on seeing all those happy faces! It was just a fulfilling experience! I will be sending you more pictures! I feel so good to be able to offer my art to the community!

—Vanesa

Vane Andrade's murals for ShareFest at Alta Vista. Click for a larger picture.

Wether it was by painting, planting, passing out lunch, doing laundry or participating in any project on May 2, every volunteer left an imprint on the South Bay and Harbor communities.

Please keep posting your stories!

Eagles' Nest Preschool imprint video

On May 2, El Segundo Foursquare Church left its mark on Eagles' Nest Preschool in El Segundo. Volunteers painted seven classrooms, re-built and painted cubbies, painted doors, pulled weeds and landscaped around the playground.

The church was able to affect a school in its local area and begin building relationships in that community. Take a look at the video the church put together.

Two days after the project, the El Segundo Unified School District sent out a letter thanking ShareFest for its help that day. The thanks in this letter belong to the volunteers, who are the ones who had a tangible impact on the students, staff, teachers and administration at Eagles' Nest. 

Check out the letter here: El Segundo Unified School District

A few Flickr highlights

Here are a few photographic highlights from Workday projects. Click on the picture for more photos from that project, and click on the link below the photo for a story about the project if we have one.

Wilmington Park Elementary

 

Laundry Love on Wilmington Boulevard

Laundry Love story

 

DJing while 500 students work at Banning High School in Wilmington

 Banning story

 

Carodale Learning Community School

 

Some ShareFest leaders pose with Mayor Villaraigosa

 Emerging leaders story

More imprint stories

Here's another glimpse into what happened on Saturday's Workday. Stories like this about actual projects and personal impact are the essence of ShareFest. Thanks again to our 8,000 volunteers and 100 partner organizations who helped complete 255 projects.

This is from Clark Custer who worked at Torrance High School.

At Torrance High (THS), some paint and willing hands came together to add a sparkle to the campus.  This was the third year that Lighthouse Community Church and Coast Christian Fellowship have partnered with THS and ShareFest.  Lighthouse Community Church meets at the annex at THS.  After working on other parts of the campus in previous years, this year it was decided to paint the annex.  The walls were scraped clear of peeling paint and painted a light beige. The doors were painted a shiny maroon, and the surrounding bushes were trimmed and the grounds cleaned.  The effect was to turn around a forgotten building and make it something that the church as well as the students could feel good about.

In addition to the annex, other tasks including the following:  filling planters with a dump truck load of mulch, painting metal doors throughout campus, painting benches in the front of the school, trimming more bushes and painting the railings of the stairways.  We had several students help out.  They felt good to leave their mark on campus (and it was not a graftiti mark).

We had a wonderful lunch made by a team of volunteers.  Much of the food and drinks was donated by area merchants.  In all we had about sixty volunteers.  We had terrific support from Mitch Tabaldo, site supervisor, and his team.  Steve Park led the Lighthouse Community effort.

The team that came together for this project was born of a cancer recovery walk.  After his surgery for lymphoma cancer, Ben Tang would walk during lunch with co-workers.  On one such walk, I told Ben that his church planned to do a Sharefest project at THS.  Ben connected me with Kim Kira, senior pastor at Lighthouse Community, and the partnership was born.  

We thank God for his grace in allowing us to work together for good

—Clark

Want more stories? Check out our comments here and leave your own.

Imprint stories

We've been getting dozens of e-mails from people expressing thanks for the Workday and even more talking about how gratified people felt by serving their community for a day.

We're going to post as many as we can, but here's one from Victory who worked at Hickory Elementary in Torrance with her daughter. She not only got to serve a school she has a personal connection with, she got to see some of the result. It's well worth a read.

This year, we had the privilege of working at my daughter’s school – she is a kindergartener at Hickory Elementary in Torrance.

Because the investment this year felt more “personal” – it really made it a special time.  This is our fifth year being involved in the Workday.  Each year has its own special flare, but this year may have topped the charts.  We had a team of about 45 people – painting, doing fence repair, building shelving, washing windows, etc.  My daughter spent the whole day with us – 8 hours (though she did do her fair share of playing too, a bonus to being at her school!). She helped paint, wash windows, pick up trash.  I feel like it gave her a greater sense of pride in her school.  Also, in my role as project manager, she asked me a couple times “Mommy, are you the boss today?”  I hope that this is a way that she can see my support and love for her school.

We feel like our family is called to putting our children through public school, so as we see it, with younger siblings – we’ve got another 10 years at this school.  I love the fact that she could go to school on Monday, excited about the work she was able to do for her school.  I know that there were areas/schools that may be more IN NEED, in terms of finances and stuff, but I really like the opportunity to serve our school in this way – and the fact that many of the teachers know that it is because of our relationship with Christ that we desire to serve our community.  Besides all of this, with my parents helping as well, my daughter gets to work along side her grandparents, and see their love and support of her school as well.

We've heard that the teachers are very happy, and on Monday when I was dropping her off in the morning, little groups were formed around the murals. Loved it.  Her principal even came into her classroom on Monday morning and told her classmates that they had a special painter in their room, and had everyone say "thank you!"  My daughter felt like a million bucks!!!

—Victory

Don't forget to take a look at other stories and thank-yous that have been posted on the blog here. Add your own by posting a comment or e-mailing us at info@sharefestinc.org.

Hard at work on a mural at Hickory that says "citizenship"