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Each year, DASH (Dependable, Affordable, Sustainable Housing) chooses a couple of homes within the community to give a facelift.

Paint the Town is a way for DASH to not only improve a home better and make it look better but to love on members of the community.

On Saturday, 90-year-old Aurelia Easter got a birthday surprise she never expected. Her home was one of the two homes chosen from a number of applicants.

Easter’s home was given a fresh coat of paint, old rotting boards on the home were replaced, and she even got a central heating and air unit installed in her 58-year-old home. For almost six decades, Easter has lived in that home without central heating and air. She raised six children in that home.

Easter’s husband worked for John Whitley who was the CEO of Whitley Construction Company. Whitley built and gave the house on Revis Street to them many years ago.  As a lifelong LaGrange resident, Easter has watched the street and community grow around her.

As Easter watched the youth group from First Baptist Church on the Square work diligently throughout the day to fix her home up, she grinned from ear to ear.

It’s events like these that make our community great. When young students and adults give back to their elders, something special happens.

We were so proud to see students from all different backgrounds come together for a Saturday to give back to their community.

It’s important for locals to not always look inward, but outward into the community to see how they can help.

Our community is weaved together with people of all different ages, lifestyles, jobs, incomes and personalities. But at the end of the day we are a community that needs to lean on each other.

We hope this event inspired others within the county to possibly look outward from their homes and volunteer.