Veteran’s home in Idaho Falls gets makeover from Paint-a-Thon service project
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IDAHO FALLS — Employees from a local bank and their families are helping a local veteran this week by giving his home a facelift, which is all part of an annual service project.
The Zions Bank Paint-a-Thon project kicked off Monday and will go through Thursday.
“Zions has been doing Paint-a-Thon for 31 years now and it’s a way for us to give back to the community. Through a nomination process, we find either a local veteran, or an elderly couple that we can help spruce up their home so that it makes it a little nicer for them,” said Courtney Cook, Zions Bank employee and Paint-a-Thon team captain.
Projects completed during the annual week-long event were selected with the assistance of nominations from the public, state housing agencies, community organizations and local churches, according to a news release.
Paul Pettyjohn was nominated for the project in Idaho Falls and said he loves living in this community.
“We love it. There’s a lot of good things here, very family-oriented,” he said. “This is our first home that we’ve owned so we’ve worked pretty hard getting to this point.”
The Marine veteran has a wife and three kids, with one child on the way.
His home, which is tan and brown, has been power washed and primed. Volunteers will paint the house red.
“I think it’s wonderful they are here. We are very humbled. We were looking to see what other things we could do to the house and keep adding on to just kind of make it our own home, and I think this is going to be a great addition of making it our home,” Pettyjohn said.
There are over 40 volunteers helping, and they will also help with the landscaping and a couple of different projects with the deck.
Pettyjohn said he had no idea he would get nominated and is so grateful.
“We are pretty excited. We didn’t expect to even get chosen. We figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance and we got pretty lucky,” he said. “That’s one of the things that I love about Idaho Falls. There’s a lot of community-orientated organizations. There’s a lot of ways that you can help and there’s a lot of ways that you can help veterans. It’s nice to see that people appreciate veterans.”
Cook says her favorite part about helping in the Paint-a-Thon is being able to bring all the volunteers together and work together.
“Then, the end result when we get to show it to the homeowner and just how excited they are for it. He’s already excited and we haven’t even done that much with it, so I can only imagine what he is going to be like when we finish!” Cook said.
Cook added that RAD Painting helped donate supplies to accomplish the project and Chick-fil-A has provided free meals.
“We’ve had a lot of community support through this and it just makes it that much better,” Cook said.
Throughout the service project, more than 2,200 volunteers will be cleaning, scraping and painting 36 homes across Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.
Launched in 1991, Zions Bank’s Paint-a-Thon began as a volunteer project for a dozen homes along Utah’s Wasatch Front. Over the past three decades, Zions Bank employees have set aside summer pastimes for a week each year and volunteered in the evenings after work to paint 1,287 homes throughout Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, a news release said.
