500 Painters Brush Up on Volunteerism : Community service: Twenty-eight Anaheim homeowners get their houses painted free, making life a bit brighter.

When Elias Verdin learned that his house was going to be painted for free, he had a natural reaction.

Disbelief.

“It took two months to convince me,” noted Verdin, 81, a widower who has lived in the same single-story stucco home for the past four decades. “I didn’t think it could be. It’s the first thing I ever got for free in my life.”

But free it was. Verdin’s modest house was among 28 residences in Anaheim painted Saturday from foundation to roof as part of a special effort sponsored by a coalition of neighborhood groups, businesses, church parishioners and civic leaders.

The program, dubbed “Paint Your Heart Out Anaheim,” was the first of its kind in the city, and drew 500 volunteers ranging from Girl Scouts to a team of off-duty police officers.

Hefting 400 brushes, 500 rollers, 100 ladders and slathering on 1,100 gallons of paint, the volunteers good-naturedly toiled well into the afternoon to make life a little bit brighter for elderly residents in houses throughout the city.

“I don’t have the words to thank everyone,” Verdin murmured, gazing up as volunteers put the finishing touches on stylish blue columns and trim. “This is a new generation with bright ideas. Thank God they’re helping us old people.”

To qualify for the program, participants like Verdin had to own their homes and meet federal guidelines for age or disability and income. Teams from the city’s Neighborhood Preservation Office visited each home and verified the details.

Professional contractors and painters volunteered their time to help out, and crews from Set Free Christian Fellowship provided 1,000 hours of work to get the houses and yards ready for painting.

Paint in a variety of designer hues was donated by five private firms, and several local fast-food restaurants provided lunch Saturday for the crews. Afterward, many of the volunteers converged on Anaheim Stadium for a celebration and were admitted free to the Angels game.

“This has truly been a communitywide effort,” said Keith Olesen, chairman of the event. “We have volunteers who have lived their whole lives in Anaheim and those who neither live nor work here, but want to make a difference in the lives of these seniors.”

Olesen also noted that the effort to paint 28 houses “will reach far beyond the painting itself by giving all of us a sense of pride in our neighborhoods.”

Or in themselves.

“I think it’s beautiful,” said Anna Downey, 76, who has lived in her clapboard house near downtown Anaheim since she was a girl in 1921. “I think it’s a neat program. I doubt I would have been able to afford this otherwise.”

Outside, a team of 18 volunteers culled from the Anaheim city manager’s office worked steadily in the afternoon heat, brushing battleship-gray paint on the walls and finishing it off with light blue and white trim.

For a time, the group even included City Councilman Irv Pickler, who picked up a brush and took on a swath of wall in the back yard for about two hours.

“We’re just happy to see an impact,” noted Bret Colson, the team’s leader and a public information specialist with the city. “It was pretty much pandemonium out here this morning, but I would term it successful pandemonium because more paint ended up on the house than on us.”

“Yeah, but I’m not done yet,” a grinning Ken Stone, city audit manager, said as he teetered on the home’s back step with a paint can in one hand and brush in the other.

Stone said the day was providing “a nice relief” from crunching numbers Monday through Friday.

“The frail elderly who live in these places can’t really pay what it costs to have their houses painted,” he said. “These are the homes most of them will live in the rest of their lives. It’ll be nice for them to have a little better place to spend their time.”

A few blocks over, Betty Caldwell couldn’t help but get a little misty-eyed as she gazed at a new coat of bright yellow paint on the house where she and her late husband raised two boys.

“I just broke down and cried when this happened,” Caldwell said. “This is something else. I don’t even remember when this place was painted last.”

A crew made up mostly of employees at Planning Design Solutions, a Newport Beach planning and environmental consultant firm, put a seamless coat over the faded aluminum siding of Caldwell’s home. Carl Nagel, a third-generation Anaheim resident and professional painter, provided guidance and tips of the trade.

“We figured this might be something nice to do rather than having an office barbecue or something like that,” noted Mikel Whitley, who was serving as captain of the work crew. “Actually, I think people are having a pretty good time.”

Nearby, Caldwell just stood and stared at the freshly painted walls. She shook her head. It all seemed a little hard to believe.

“I think it’s awesome,” she said, sounding none of her 74 years. “It makes me feel younger.

“God love them. I think they even washed my windows.”