The Daily Citizen, Dalton, GA

Education

Related Photos

  • Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen Dalton resident Kacie Griggs, 13, front, paints a home on Oxford Street Saturday morning with her sister Cara, 15, behind her, and several other youth.

    Home painting 3 mlh.jpg

  • Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen A group of young people paint a house on Oxford Street Saturday morning as part of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s March Mission Madness to improve homes across the state.

    Home painting 1 mlh.jpg

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March 20, 2010

Helpin’ and paintin’

Hundreds of kids spruce up city

Jamie Jones Dalton Daily Citizen

DALTON — With his bracket busted and interest in the men’s college basketball tournament waning, Pierce Montgomery spent Saturday re-painting the Dalton home of a Vietnam veteran who couldn’t do the work himself.

More than 600 youth from across Georgia were in Dalton on Friday and Saturday as part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s March Mission Madness, a play on the college basketball playoff season known as March Madness. The teens were busy painting homes, clearing overgrown yards and picking up trash throughout the city under the watchful eyes of adult volunteers.

“It’s definitely fulfilling,” said Pierce, a 17-year-old student at Pope High School in Roswell. “It’s March Madness weekend so I could be at home, but I’m not even watching anymore. My bracket is so messed up. I crumbled up my bracket after the first round of games.”

For the past 14 years, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has partnered with churches for March Mission Madness. Last week, the group was in Macon and next week they’ll be in Atlanta. First Baptist Church of Dalton was the host site for this weekend and helped find volunteer opportunities. The church hosted an event Friday night complete with music and inflatables to keep the kids entertained and is hosting worship services today before the youths head back home.

A group of about 20 teens and adult supervisors were busy Saturday morning sprucing up a dilapidated house on Oxford Street, just a few hundred feet from Bry-Man’s Plaza North. A worker with First Baptist Church on Friday replaced several decaying boards along the house’s exterior. On Saturday, the teens were diligently scraping paint flakes off old boards then re-painting them with a olive color. Many of the kids had never painted before, which was evidenced by stray brush strokes that got on clothes, hair and hands. One of the younger volunteers marveled at a nail gun wielded by an adult.

Crews were also out on Meeting Street, Nelson Street, Spencer Street and at the Boys and Girls Club of Dalton on Underwood Street.

T.J. Dash, 15, participated in the event last year in Athens.

“It was a lot of fun,” T.J. said. “There was this old, abandoned house that a lady that was moving into and it was completely trashed. We repainted the whole house, we changed the inside of it completely. We built new rooms. I think they ended up buying her a lot of furniture.”

The fellow Pope High School student also has a bracket that “is completely messed up.”

Pierce, taking a break from painting the home on Oxford Street, said he picked the University of Kansas to win the tournament. On Saturday morning, the Jayhawks were still alive, but Pierce’s thoughts were on the homeowner receiving help from strangers.

“They guy just really needed the help,” Pierce said. “My youth pastor is a great guy and he convinced everyone to come up here and help him out.”

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