Click on the photo for more pics of the event!

It’s Thursday November 19th inside the East Gallery and people are putting on tape and paper to protect the woodwork from any unwanted paint. It has been a while since the gallery has seen a fresh coat of paint and wow, who are the ones painting it? They just showed up, most never having been here before. Why are they here? Why do they care?

Well it’s the same thing that happens from time to time. Someone comes to an event, is impressed by what happens here and wants to help. People help in a variety of ways, in this case someone wanted to help from several different angles. This time it was Jessica Waers, Jessica came to Alcott on October 10 2009 on a  quest to find the Zombie Prom. She was there in support of our mutual friend Betsy Barrett who was instrumental in putting the Zombie Prom together and was also a featured Artist for the Exhibit.

Jessica was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, food for the Zombies.

We got a chance to talk and share our stories with her and she became excited about helping to find ways to make sure we keep growing, for all of this, to Jessica we say Thanks and welcome to our world!

Back to the Gallery, okay so you know why Jessica was there but why her workmates? Well excitement is infectious and our story really is a good one, you know our building could have been a prison very easily if the community hadn’t stepped in, saved it and developed it into a regional Arts center. Well Jessica started recruiting from her department and other bank locations around town and even bringing her own sister Amanda in to help. The excitement she had, worked in Alcott’s favor and she was able to get us five workers to help paint the East gallery.

We would like to Thank Everyone that helped make this Day of Caring work out.

First we would like to Thank UMB Bank and all bank managers and department heads for allowing these fine people to come help us out, on their workday and paying them to use their day to help. Thanks for your support of the Not for Profit Community.

Thank you:

Amanda Miller

Jessica Waers

Dirk Richter

Matt  Brown

Ben Hass

These fine people came out on Thursday November 19, 2009 and got right to work taping everything off, putting guard paper over woodwork and spreading the drop cloths down on the floor. They told us that most of them didn’t have a lot of painting experience. Well that didn’t deter them one bit. They worked incredibly well together and got a ton of work done very quickly, you would have thought they worked together every day. Such continuity! It was not an easy job since some of the plaster kept coming loose from the wall as they painted. They persevered and ended up with a very nice looking Gallery for us to present to the public.

Thanks again to all of these hard workers and of course UMB Bank!