One merchant is giving back to the community that helps him earn a living, and neighborhood children will now have a much nicer recreation room because of his generosity.
The Phipps Community Beacon after-school and weekend program serves middle school students at the Piangentini and Jones educational campus at 650 Hollywood Avenue. It needed some paint to spruce up its recreation room.
After getting in touch with Community Board 10, who then reached out to Paint Plus at 3156 E. Tremont Avenue, the program received a donation of paint and supplies that will allow them to completely repaint the recreation room. The recreation room serves more than 200 middle school students, as well as a number of high school students and adults. The room is a place to kick back and play pool, foosball, and other games.
“We are going to repaint all of the lockers in [the 1500-square-foot] room,” said Paulo Seminario, assistant director for the program. “The lockers will be painted black, and the rest of the walls will be painted purple, which are the colors of our program. This was all possible because Community Board 10 reached out to Paint Plus, which has been more than generous.”
Steve Rocco, the co-owner of Paint Plus, said the company was glad to make the donation of paint, brushes, and rollers because he both lives in the neighborhood and gets the majority of his business referrals from Throggs Neck.
“You have a lot of paint and painting supplies donated for this room, which I think will be a great resource for the kids,” Rocco said. “This is a small price to pay for what the program gives back to the community. I live and work here, and the majority of my work is in the area, so I see the benefits first-hand.”
Rocco donated off-white paint for the ceiling, light purple paint for the walls, and black for the lockers, which will be painted by children enrolled in the after-school and weekend educational and recreational program.
“I want to paint the logos of the three schools in our building on the walls of our recreation room,” said volunteer Aaron Addotey, who attends Urban Institute of Mathematics at the educational campus.
Kaitlyn Castro, an 11-year-old from Mott Hall Community School, said the painting project would give the young people a chance to begin again with their recreation room.
“I would like to see what this room would look like when it was brand new,” Castro said. “Now we will get the chance.”
