Volunteer Angels Gonzaga Students Clean House At Trinity School

About 200 volunteers descended on Trinity Catholic School on Saturday.

Armed with cleaning rags, paint brushes and shovels, the Gonzaga University students spruced up the elementary school - inside and out.

Their white T-shirts marked them as April’s Angels, members of a group formed for the daylong mission.

Gonzaga sophomore Kristin Whitehead organized the volunteer renovation at the school, 1306 W. Montgomery.

“It’s in such need of the work,” Whitehead said of the West Central building and its playground.

Gonzaga students donated their time to several community service projects Saturday, helping organizations such as Special Olympics, Cancer Patient Care and COPS.

Organizers of the campuswide volunteer day, called Gonzaga University in Service To Others - GUSTO, hope to make it an annual affair.

April’s Angels raised about $2,000 from the university’s residence hall association and businesses including Shopko and Tidyman’s Warehouse Foods. Sponsors helped pay for cleaning and painting supplies, plants for landscaping and sturdy basketball hoops for the playground.

As some volunteers washed windows, others replaced weeds with junipers, marigolds and shrubs.

Under windy blue skies, Steve Menzel helped move gravel off the grass into a play structure area.

Normally, he said, he would have been working on his own yard. But as the father of three children who had gone to Trinity Catholic School, he was eager to help.

Inside, Gonzaga freshman Theresa Solis polished wood frames near the stairs.

Why would she want to spend her Saturday here?

“It sounded like a good idea,” she said. Solis said that it wasn’t too hard recruiting students to give up some of their weekend for the cause.

Volunteers worked in three shifts from 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

The renovation project wasn’t exactly how Whitehead envisioned it last fall.

Whitehead, who is studying special education, hoped to create a local group affiliated with Christmas in April, a national organization that rehabilitates homes of low-income senior citizens.

But rather than dealing with the red tape involved with the organization, she decided to spearhead her own service project.

“We thought we should work at Trinity because we already had a mentoring program here,” Whitehead said.

Gonzaga volunteer coordinator Sima Thorpe said that college students meet with elementary students after school two days a week in the mentor program, now in its second year.

Whitehead said the elementary students have already shown appreciation for the volunteers’ efforts.

A thank-you sign greeted the Gonzaga students when they arrived Saturday morning. “They signed their names,” Whitehead said, smiling. “It was really cute.”