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Painting the entire interior of not one but two homes sounds like a weeks-long project, but 19 local volunteers from Capital One Bank got the job done in just a day.
“We do volunteer work every year,” said Ricky Ortte, Capital One Bank’s Tri-parish retail district manager. “Capital One wanted to concentrate all of our volunteer work into one week so we could accomplish bigger things, but we still do a few small projects during the year.
“Look at what we did today. We knocked off two houses in one day.”
Ortte was just one of 19 local volunteers participating in Capital One’s One Week community service initiative, part of the company’s Investing for Good approach to support community development and local non-profit organizations. The volunteers had partnered with Bayou Area Habitat for Humanity to repaint the interiors of two homes in a low- to moderate-income neighborhood near Gray.
“I love doing refurbishing projects like redoing old furniture,” Ortte said. “I’m also doing those kinds of projects in my spare time. Capital One loves for us to do local volunteer work. We also help out at Hope Extreme, and we just volunteered at the Bayou Region Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.”
During the week-long event, 1,300 Capital One employees across the state spent more than 4,500 hours partnering with non-profits in their communities to create a lasting, local community impact and bring Capital One associates together through the events. The local volunteers chose to work with Capital One, and the bank also supports the Habitat for Humanity nationwide.
“I was hoping we were going to get to use some power tools today,” said volunteer Gilda Johnson, laughing. “I like helping out with projects like these. It’s a feel-good thing.”
Johnson, who works at the Valhi Boulevard Capital One branch in Houma, has participated in other Capital One volunteer projects, but this was her first time to work on a Habitat for Humanity project in the Bayou Area.
Fellow coworker Nadine Felorise, an employee at the Larose Capital One branch, has participated in Habitat for Humanity projects before.
“I do a lot of volunteer work,” she said. “Last time, I helped paint houses, too, but those houses were down the bayou.”
Tony Shock, a construction manager with Habitat for Humanity, was supervising and assisting as the volunteers completed the paint work on the home.
“This is my first time to work with volunteers from Capital One, and they did a great job,” Shock said. “It was a good turnout of volunteers for a local event. We got two houses painted in one day.”
According to Shock, there is still some carpentry work to be done in the homes, but the residences will be ready for occupancy soon.
Volunteers from local Capital One branches painted the interior of this home and another in the Gray area in just one day. The Habitat for Humanity project was part of Capital One’s One Week community service initiative.
