Swords to Plowshares – A Project Snapshot

The Project: Swords to Plowshares is a great organization that serves our Veterans and RTSF looked forward to serving them. War causes wounds and suffering that lasts beyond the battlefield and their mission is to heal the wounds, to restore dignity, hope and self-sufficiency to veterans in need, and to significantly reduce homelessness and poverty among veterans.

Why we LOVE them: Swords to Plowshares veterans have volunteered at many of our events for many years. They have have volunteered at our Kick-off, prep-days, Rebuilding Day, and at our celebration. They are an amazing group of individuals.

How They Found Us: Our outreach team uses a multitude of tools to reach out to the San Francisco community. Swords to Plowshares found out about Rebuilding Together’s services through an email from a list serve. Intrigued by the opportunity, they reached out to us and began the application process. They are also one of our ongoing community partners.

The Need: Their facility is in an area of San Francisco that receives a lot of graffiti. They had hoped for RTSF’s help with painting the outside of their building, to improve the exterior image and to make it easier to remove graffiti because it is a very expensive problem for them. They also wanted general interior painting as a way to improve the look of the space for the participants and staff.

The Rebuilding Day Team: Swords to Plowshares benefited from the leadership of our Construction Captain, Sam Meyer from Sourdough Painting and from Volunteer Captain, Connor Kidd of The Belden Club. Together, they were able to not only paint the exterior street facing section of the facility, but also much of the interior with their awesome team of 40+ volunteers. The staff and the veterans Swords to Plowshares serves were very appreciative of the work done.

The Work:

• Prepare and paint front exterior, first floor (up to fire escape) only
• Paint select areas of first and second floor interior to include:
  • First floor: main hallway, law library, legal department
  • Second floor: front of main room from windows to first columns
• Organize law library storage shelving area

Partners

• The Belden Club
• Sourdough Painting

A BIG thank you to EVERYONE that helped out! Like us on Facebook and check out the rest of the project album on Flickr.