‘Magical’ facelift at Wahtonka

Sunday, Sept. 7 was designated as “God’s Work, Our Hands Sunday” throughout the ELCA denomination, the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.

“The purpose is to reach out to our community, to show that the church is at work all the time,” said Zion Interim Pastor Maggie Rourk.

“Zion doesn’t have the capacity to take on some multi-thousand dollar project. But we took suggestions from the congregation and the council decided that where there was the greatest need for what we could do was perhaps to help out one of the schools,” she said.

A high school teacher in the congregation got a tip that Wahtonka was in great need of painting, Rourk said. And so, some 20 people, who ranged in age from their 20s to their 70s, showed up at Wahtonka School last month and painted two classrooms and three small offices with paint provided by the school.

Wahtonka Principal Brian Goodwin said it was the first time in his 16 years in the district that he’s had volunteer painters, and the effect “was magical. It was like they were brand new.”

One accent wall in each classroom was painted in the school colors: purple and teal. “It’s just striking,” Goodwin said. “The kids were like, ‘Hey, that’s neat.’ It made everybody feel special. We’ve got this super old building and it got a facelift.”

He added the special feeling came not just from the new paint job, “but that somebody would do that for us. It’s pretty cool.”

Rourk said, “We brought our hands ready to work.”

Their painting job was based on how many people were in the party, she said.

The school provided paint, a scaffold, rollers and brushes. “We did bring some ladders and paint rags and things like that,” she said.

The offices were painted a light mint green and the two classrooms were painted white, with feature walls in each, one teal and the other purple.

“There was lots of laughing and carrying on and hooting, just general fun,” she said. “A lot of painting is just tedious, when you’re cutting in and doing corners and going around things, but you have to concentrate on it, but we had a good time,” she said.

They all showed up in their yellow “God’s Hands, Our Work” t-shirts.

This was the first time Zion has done a “God’s Work, Our Hands” project, Rourk said. It is already active in the community, helping with backpack programs.

She thinks the congregation had such a good time it wants to do another project next year.

“We try to take every opportunity that we can to reach out to the community, to be part of this community,” she said. That includes offering the church as a community meeting place.

The church also participates in serving Community Meals and it recently shipped over 30 quilts to Lutheran World Relief. The quilts go to Africa, South America and Asia.