TARZANA : Volunteers Have Paint, Need Brushes

On Feb. 5, about 150 volunteer workers from Los Angeles area Wells Fargo banks are scheduled to paint 15 classrooms and three staff offices at Nestle Avenue Elementary School in Tarzana.

But there is a major problem: There are no supplies with which to apply even one coat of the paint donated by the school district.

With the tremendous maintenance back-log that has accrued over the last two decades in the Los Angeles Unified School District, it’s been 36 years since the inside of the 26-room elementary school has been painted.

The volunteers will be at Nestle as part of a community outreach program at Wells Fargo called “Wells Team.”

Fortuna Ippoliti, a Nestle parent who is responsible for the bank’s participation, has appealed to paint stores and home improvement centers in the area for the needed brushes, rollers, buckets and drop cloths to make the project complete.

So far, she has had little success.

“I’ve been getting nothing but excuses from these companies,” said Ippoliti. “They say that they are backed up due to the Northridge earthquake. That happened more than a year ago.”

A local Carl’s Jr. promised to feed the Wells Fargo volunteers lunch and to donate 25% of its Feb. 5 sales to Nestle for future maintenance projects.

But Ippoliti said the school needs tangible supplies immediately.

Stressing the importance of community involvement in public schools, she said that she is hopeful that San Fernando Valley residents will chip in to save the day.

“You can’t just drop off your kid at school and expect everything to take care of itself anymore,” she said. “We have to make a commitment to our schools.

“There’s a lot of work to be done. The walls are chipped and have become a disgusting yellow. It hurts the eye.”

In honor of the clean walls anticipated by Nestle’s parents, teachers and administrators, the bank plans to make a celebration out of painting day. The bank will bring its famed stagecoach down from Northern California for onlookers to examine as the bankers-turned-weekend painters tackle their project, which they estimate will take less than eight hours.

Though worried about the prospect of 150 volunteers standing around with only a burger and a bucket of paint in their hands, Nestle principal Edward L. Catlett is glad the school is getting at least this much help.

“So far, all we have are seven paint pans and a bag full of sponges,” Catlett said. “But we can’t stand around wringing our hands over what we don’t have. What we have now is more than we had before.

“We’ll get the job done even if we have to paint with our bare hands,” he said.

Anyone who has paint materials to donate or lend can call the school at (818) 342-6148.