News
Group Looking For More Volunteers To Help Repaint Town
By: Arian Smedley | Athens Messenger
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The Glouster Volunteers will once again be working with the students of Skills USA to repaint the town, but the group needs something to make it happen — more volunteers.
Last summer for the first time, 260 volunteers from the SkillsUSA Summer Leadership Camp at Hocking College joined the Glouster Volunteers in sprucing up the town. Last year, they painted the exterior of 17 houses in one day.
SkillsUSA Ohio is a technical student organization. For eight years, the summer camp has been hosted at Hocking College. During the camp, the students, who represent around 35 high schools from across the state, get a taste of the college experience, leadership skills and an opportunity to work a service project, in this case, painting the homes of Glouster.
On July 17, more than 200 campers will once again descend upon the little town with the hopes of painting at least a dozen or more homes, said Jim Cotter, co-founder of the Glouster Volunteers.
“We’d like to find out if anybody in the community would like to helps us be an advisor for our groups,” Cotter said.
Volunteers are needed sooner rather than later, Cotter explained. He said he needs help connecting with homeowners to find out what work needs to be done and where. There may also be tasks — like clearing off porches or chipping away old paint — that should be done ahead of time. Ideally, the only work that will be done on July 17 will be the painting, Cotter said.
On the day of the event, the volunteers will serve as project managers and will guide the work on each house.
The inspiration for the Glouster Volunteers, which has been around just over one year, came from Cotter and his sister Jody Moore. They both grew up in Glouster; Moore still lives there. Their efforts to clean up their town started with window washing and has since included dozens of improvement projects.
Anyone is welcome to join their efforts, said Cooter. Experience working with young adults is a plus. Those who are interested in helping can call either Cotter or Moore at 767-3458.