“We’ll Paint the Town.”
Who knew a group of 42 sleepy college kids, 15 buckets of white paint, 7 hours to complete the task to re-paint 6 floors of an old business building, and 3 Ole Miss gents singing their version of “Wagon Wheel” to pass the time could change the lives of 1 broken community.
We Painted the Town, Their Town.
Somalian refugees live in this old business building. How many you might ask, enough to cover all the floors when it’s bedtime. No electricity. No running water. All of them scared to leave their business building. All of them seeking for a better life and in those 7 hours of scrubbing and painting we did just that. We changed lives for these people who are normally viewed as nothing in the Greek community. We showed them that someone out there cares for them.
When I was painting I took a second to glance at my surroundings and saw a refugee smiling at us painting the walls. He smiled. I knew right then we were doing so much more than just painting the walls.
The cherry on top of this day was getting the opportunity to paint over slandering graffiti that covered the entrance to their home just reminding them how they were not wanted. We had an audience of refugees watching us paint over the hurtful words, smiling.
I am about 99% sure the refugees’ lives weren’t the only ones changed that day.
-DeAnna Jarnagin
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