High Life: A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Brushing Up on Helping Out : Volunteers: Paint Your Heart Out teaches Sunny Hills students many lessons, including that leadership is more than telling people what to do.

Leadership. I didn’t totally learn what that word meant until recently. I’d always assumed it was simply standing in front, deciding what should be done, and then telling people what to do.

Earlier this year, my friend Melody McGrath and I agreed, with prodding from our International Club adviser at Sunny Hills High School, to organize a community service project.

Melody, with help from the “Volunteer Hot-Line,” was given the number of an organization called Paint Your Heart Out, Anaheim. This public service group is dedicated to home beautification. Elderly residents of Anaheim whose income is below a certain level can qualify to have their homes painted by volunteer crews from churches, businesses and schools.

The organization does much fine work--it has painted 103 homes in three years, including 44 on the weekends we were part of the project.

Our experience with the project was filled with lessons we never expected to learn. (Lesson No. 1: Joining a project that has the name of a vital organ in its title is not for the faint-hearted.)

I called the project coordinator and had several deep, philosophical conversations with the answering machine. Finally, I gave the number back to Mel. The coordinator immediately answered the phone and set up our project.

We were given the address of a house in southern Anaheim and assigned to paint it. (Lesson No. 2: Painting anything--especially an object the size of a house--is a big project.)

Lacking confidence in our adviser’s assurance that he could get us “as many people as needed,” Mel wisely delegated the project to the National Honor Society in hopes of having adequate volunteers.

At an Honor Society meeting, we had what mathematicians call “a lot” of people raising their hands, signifying that they could come. (Lesson No. 3: Never believe anyone who simply raises him hand at a meeting. They are only doing it because everyone else is doing it.)

And so, the first of our two work days finally arrived. A hardy group of nine students, armed with stepladders, sanders and a Big Job Scraper assembled at Sunny Hills and caravaned down to the house.

We got lost. Although the students finally found the house, our adviser, Tricia Elisara, never made it.

We spent the morning and a good part of the afternoon removing paint from the blue and white house in the form of flakes, and putting it back on in the form of primer. We also managed to put a fair amount of primer on the driveway.

The owner of the house, a self-described “grandmother from Brooklyn,” welcomed us and then drove off in her car while we worked to precondition her house.

We kept reminding ourselves that we were doing this for charity as we scraped away, got sunburned and spattered ourselves with primer. (Lesson No. 4: Don’t get paint in your hair.)

By 1 p.m., our cooler full of Snapples had been exhausted, and all but three of the workers had vanished for various reasons. Melody and I, who as project organizers felt compelled to stay, were joined by sophomore Laurie Carper, who has been ensured Honor Society membership well into the next century.

My mother, bored with the “Make Money Through 900-Number Service” seminar which she had been attending, arrived about 2:30 p.m. and, with a homemade paper visor, joined us in our priming efforts.

About 3:30 p.m., our PYHOA supervisor, known as Bob, arrived and told us that we were finished if we thought we were. We thought we were.

The next Saturday, we arrived with a carload of paint, brushes and another group of enthusiastic would-be painters. As we opened the paint, the owner of the house informed us that it was the wrong color.

The day before, when I had picked up the paint, I was assured that the color was exactly what the owner had selected, and that I shouldn’t let anyone tell me otherwise.

I carefully explained to the owner that the color we had was the color that she’d picked. About that time, though, Melody returned from the telephone to inform us that the color was, in fact, wrong. Oops.

It was about an hour before the right color of paint arrived, and we began to paint. We quickly discovered we didn’t really know how. (Lesson No. 5: When painting a house, make sure someone knows what they’re doing.)

We decided to start at the bottom, and, working up, save the eaves for last. As we worked up, we managed to spill the trim color--sunrise peach--all over the main color--Navajo white. Cleaning up these drips wasn’t as easy as it seemed--a quick wipe of the hand got rid of the spot, but then I had paint on my hands. This remained on my hands until I forgot about it and wiped my face.

Around 2 p.m., Bob showed up and explained to us that everything we’d been doing was pretty much wrong. He had with him close to 20 paint-spattered volunteers from the Katella High School Key Club, who had already finished painting their house.

By the time we packed up (still unfinished) at 4 p.m., the only ones who remained were the Katellans, Melody, Laurie and me.

After an evening of groveling phone calls to various friends, acquaintances and Honor Society members, Melody and I managed to secure a small number of people to finish the job the next morning.

We were joined by Tricia Elisara and her husband, Chris, who had finally managed to find the house despite our flawed directions.

Our job included touch-ups and damage control. We cleaned up the millions of spills and smudges from the previous day. We spent a good deal of time scraping three layers of paint off of windows, and achieved virtual oneness with the driveway as we scraped away with our Big Job Scrapers.

By the time we were finished, all present had the satisfaction of a job . . . well . . . done.

(Overall Lesson: Leadership isn’t just telling others what to do. It means doing it for them when they flake out.)

For additional information on Paint Your Heart Out, Anaheim, call 974-9481.