Volunteers add some sunshine to St. Vincent de Paul Society's Day Center
“I think the mural makes it much more inviting,” said Bill Marick, St. Vincent de Paul Society Board Member.
The new mural sure does brighten up the place. Pictured left to right: Dave Lutgens, Bill Marick and Galen Ballinger
By Cole Goodwin
St. Vincent de Paul Society’s downtown location is undergoing a beautification process.
Volunteer painters Lance Pardee and Galen Ballinger have painted the once gray building a sky colored blue and brightened up the entrance with a mural of a friendly and welcoming sun.
“I got involved through my mom, who’s been volunteering down here,” said Ballinger. “I talked to them about helping with design and painting.”
Ballinger said he chose the sunshine design after being told about St. Vincent de Paul’s decision to become a Day Center.
A Day Center is a place where services are provided during regular business hours with no shelter hours at night.
“The sun was the first obvious image that came to me when I was thinking about ways to communicate that visually. The sun just has so much symbology connected to it, light, warmth, life. And design wise I wanted to make it welcoming and sort of draw you in with big open armed rays. I want people to feel excited and also like it was a safe place to walk into,” said Ballinger.
Another angle of the building.
Ballinger said they tried to make the mural painting process as sustainable as possible by using recycled paint.
“This is MetroPaint,” said Ballinger, “Their company is pretty amazing. They are a recycled paint company in Portland. They take donated paint and color match them to come up with ten colors that they can consistently make.”
“This blue color is called River Blues. It’s a nice calming, beautiful blue,” said Ballinger pointing to the mural. “The yellow is called Unmellow Yellow, the yellow isn’t MetroPaint though.”
MetroPaint is also fairly cheap way to reduce a projects carbon footprint at just $15 a gallon.
Ballinger finished his painting on Thursday the 14th.
“People were hanging around all day, bringing me snacks and I got a lot of little gifts from the guests here. People would bring me candy and drinks and stuff like that,” said Ballinger.
This isn’t Ballinger’s first mural.
A sign painter by trade, he’s always done a couple murals in Portland. One for a Radio Station and one for Kruger’s Farm. Despite now living in Portland Ballinger said he likes to return to his hometown to help out.
“I grew up in The Dalles, I love coming out here,” said Ballinger.
Ballinger may even return to help with the still-to-be-painted wall on the west side of the building.
Another mural is also being planned.
A view of the westside of the building that is yet to be painted.
“We’ve talked about putting a mural on the westside of the building,” said Bill Marick, SVDP Board Member. Marick noted that some thought had gone into maybe giving a nod to the buildings history as the old St. Mary’s Academy.
Marick said he felt that the first mural was already a huge improvement.
“This is great. It’s much brighter. I think the mural makes it much more inviting,” said Marick,.
“And people used to ask: ‘how do we get into your building?’, well now it’s going to be very evident. And now we have a consistent color, whereas before we had places where signs had been put up and taken down so there was some discoloration. We’ve been discussing beautification for a few years. It’s definitely a work in progress. We’ve got a lot to do yet. But the exterior has been one of our big priorities. We want to get the building looking better.”
Columbia Gorge Community College Construction Class students also pitched in by building raised beds to beautify the covered picnic table area.
CGCC students built these planter boxes for SVDP.
“We came up with a design with the instructor and crew. And they did all the construction and moved them and put them in place for us,” said Marick.
“We filled them up with dirt from Dirt Hugger and then Mary Anghilante bought plants and put them in. So now we’ve just got to give them some water and keep them going. And a lot of people have commented positively about it.”
In November, a covered picnic table area was constructed at St. Vincent de Paul Society (SVDP) in memory of recently deceased SVDP and Community Meals board member Edwin Fred Anghilante. Edwin’s wife, Mary Anghilante donated over $17,500 to SVDP to resurface their parking lot, hire local contractor JJ Castro Construction to pour new concrete, purchase new picnic tables and a shade structure to cover the picnic table area. Thanks to her contributions, SVDP was able to dispose of their old wooden picnic table and provide dignifying and covid-safe outdoor seating options for those that attend Community Meals.
St. Vincent de Paul Society Executive Director Dave Lutgens, SVDP Board Member Bill Marick and Volunteer Painter Galen Ballinger stand in front of the entrance to SVDP.
And thanks to Pardee and Ballinger, the outside of SVDP is looking sunnier than ever.
Do you want to participate in beautifying the SVDP area? Have an idea for the mural? Ready to take over Warming Shelter services? Email: svdpthedallesor@gmail.com.
“We’re no longer going to be offering the Warming Shelter, so we’re looking for another program to take over the Warming Shelter. You could use our building to run it if need be,” said Lutgens.
