Trust paints rundown school out of a corner

Lesley Elia says the fact that Glenbrae Primary is being done up makes the students feel valued. Photo / Richard Robinson

It will take 358 litres of paint, 200 paintbrushes and roughly 500 pairs of hands but by the end of today Glenbrae Primary will have had a complete makeover.

The decile one school was in desperate need of a facelift and today - thanks to the Life Centre Trust, numerous sponsors and hundreds of community volunteers - it is going to happen.

By the end of the day the entire exterior of the school will have been repainted, a new junior playground built and the senior playground modernised.

Razor wire around an old swimming pool is being replaced with trees, a sun shade and seating. Drinking fountains are being upgraded and new seating installed around the school.

A band rotunda and human sundial will be built and the grounds will be landscaped, giving the ageing Auckland primary school a completely new look.

"It means an enormous lot to the school," principal Lesley Elia said. "It's turning our environment into a real learning environment for the kids and it's making them feel really valued because all these people are coming to do something for them."

The school is the third in the area to receive such a makeover.

Life Centre Trust project manager Garrith Parker said the trust wanted to do something to help the community, so in 2007 it came up with the idea of making over Pt England School.

After the success of that, the trust asked the school who else should benefit. Tamaki School was nominated and after its makeover in 2008, it nominated Glenbrae.

Miss Elia said Glenbrae, like Tamaki, was so appreciative of what was being done that it had incorporated the trust's "pay it forward" philosophy into the curriculum.

At each assembly students who helped others would be acknowledged and at the end of the year the student who had done the most would be acknowledged with a gift.

Miss Elia said the work being done today was a "wishlist" of things that needed doing around the school, plus some extra bonuses. Many things, such as the $30,000 junior playground and seating surrounded by landscaping, would have required major fundraising and probably wouldn't have been done for many years, if at all.

The paint job alone, valued at around $90,000, would have taken years to save for. That money could now go towards other school improvements.

Miss Elia said the makeover would improve the look of the school and the children's confidence and sense of pride.

"The kids are over the moon with excitement," she said.

"One little boy was looking at the plans and he said to me 'is this going to make our school popular?' I said 'yes it is'."

Mr Parker said the makeover wouldn't be able to happen without the support of hundreds of volunteers and companies such as Dulux which had donated 358 litres of paint, Cook St Placemakers, which subsidised building materials, Hutchison Builders, which supplied manpower and project planning and Mr Hire, which donated equipment.

THE MAKEOVER
* 500 volunteers, 200 of which will be painting
* 200 paintbrushes
* 30 metres of sandpaper
* 30 stirrers and 35 scrapers
* 50 empty paint pails to disperse paint
* 358 litres of paint and 4 litres of filler