Paint-A-Home

Visit Paint-A-Home XII's website

Introduction

Started in 2000, Paint-A-Home aims to improve the living environment of our beneficiaries by giving their homes a fresh coat of paint, and at the same time providing volunteers with the opportunity to make a difference to our community. Over the past nine years, our volunteers had repainted and enhanced the aesthetic outlook of various homes such as Pertapis Children’s Home (2006), Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled (2007), Jamiyah Children’s Home (2008) and even rental flats of people under the Public Assistance Scheme (2009).


Having fun with the kids

Paint-A-Home XII

Since its inception in 2000, Paint-A-Home aims to improve the aesthetic outlook of welfare homes in Singapore, thereby improving the living environment of the beneficiaries. Through this meaningful process, Paint-A-Home also aims to promote and develop volunteerism amongst NUS undergraduates while giving them the opportunity to make a difference in the community.

Traditionally, Paint-A-Home focuses on a single target group of beneficiary, be it the children, elderly, or intellectually disabled. Into its 12th year, Paint-A-Home XII (PAH XII) hopes to extend our reach to 2 different target groups. As such, our adopted beneficiary for the year is Home @ Hong San, Singapore's first residential co-location facility comprising of 2 homes – Evergreen Place and Sunbeam Place. Evergreen place is a 102-bed sheltered home for the aged while Sunbeam Place caters to children and young persons aged 2 to 18 years who are in need of safety and protection.

Despite the home's seemingly well-maintained and colorful exterior, there were several patches of uneven and peeling paint with lots of graffiti on the walls especially in Sunbeam Place. What stood out the most was the dullness and unwelcoming feel of the home's interior and PAH XII set out to change that.

Adopting the tagline of "Paint-A-Home, Paint-A-Smile", the organizing committee set out to do just that with the help of the volunteers over the 4 event days. In all, 18 dormitory rooms, 6 dormitory halls, 6 libraries, 6 study rooms, 3 levels of corridors, 2 sickbays, 2 ground floor open areas, and 1 multipurpose hall were painted by 445 volunteers over the 4 days. Catering to the children's preferences, murals of popular cartoon characters such as Lilo & Stitch, Spongebob, Bleach, and many more, were painted in their dormitory rooms. For the elderly, room and level identification murals in the form of fruits, animals, and flowers were painted to help them easily identify their rooms.

This year, PAH XII is also glad to receive the support of all 8 Regular Volunteering Programmes (RVPs) and various Special Projects (SPs) who came down as a group to help out. PAH XII also welcomed 5 beneficiaries from MINDSVille who joined in the painting process. This proves that anyone can in fact be a volunteer and all it takes is a willing heart. Last but not least, there were also 20 volunteers from Singapore Refining Company (SRC) who took time out from their work and families to join this meaningful event.


Volunteers' hardwork


Besides painting, various activities were carried out to facilitate interaction between the volunteers and the residents. For the elderly residents at Evergreen Place, activities such as Bingo, origami folding, and dough molding were carried out. Both the volunteers and the elderly enjoyed themselves and it was indeed heartwarming to see the volunteers guiding the elderly in the origami folding. As for the younger residents at Sunbeam Place, activities such as sandwich making session, travenger hunt, T-shirt design, and an egg drop game were carried out. The T-shirt design segment was particularly well-received by the children and they even put on their personally designed shirts even though it was several sizes too big for them. Through these fun and interactive activities, it is hoped that volunteers would better understand the beneficiaries that they are helping and at the same time, to let the beneficiaries know that there are people who care about them.

It was indeed hard work for both the organizing committee and the volunteers but in the end, it was made worthwhile by the smiles on the beneficiaries' faces and their looks of approval as they admire the completed paintworks and murals. Following through with the project tagline, I'll like to end off with a related quote:

"If you see someone without a smile… give them one of yours"

We may have painted 2 welfare homes, 18 dormitory rooms, 6 dormitory halls, 6 libraries, 6 study rooms, 3 levels of corridors, 2 sickbays, 2 ground floor open areas, and 1 multipurpose hall this year, but more than that, we've painted an even greater number of smiles on the beneficiaries, the volunteers, and the organizing committee.

Photos