Thank you, ARAMARK!

Great partnerships are what makes our organization work so well. A couple of weeks ago a group of City Year staff came in early Monday morning to prep many of our sites at Roseland for a group of 100 ARAMARK volunteers who would arrive on Thursday to paint murals on some of our walls and add a new plot to our already thriving garden. The volunteers also took on the huge task of painting the entire inside of the gym/community center as well as creating raised flower beds for the church across the street.

I have to commend Danielle Evans, Children's Education Coordinator, and Tameshia Rudd-Ridge, Digital Connectors Coordinator, for spending so much time and effort on this project. All day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Danielle and Tameshia worked with the City Year group to choose the designs and create the spaces for the ARAMARK volunteers to work. By the time Thursday morning came along, Danielle and Tameshia were up and at work ready to go by 6:00 a.m.

You can see most of their work in the above video, though the video doesn't really show how void of design our walls really were beforehand. My favorite part of the video is at the very end. As the ARAMARK and City Year workers finished up, the kids began coming in from school. I walked up to the After-School Academy to see the kids walking up to the group of ARAMARK people, hands extending to greet with their typical formal greeting.

Kudos to ARAMARK and City Year for spending their time getting to know us and creating murals, bookshelves, and garden plots to help us continue making our program great!