ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING is proud to announce its 5th Annual Charity Paint It Forward recipient Dan Allen. Dan has been a resident of Santa Clarita Valley for 45 years, along with his wife and son. In June of 2006, he suffered a T2 spinal cord injury in a freak accident and has been paralyzed from the chest down ever since. He has been unable to work since the accident, and the medical bills have piled up. His wife Karen took on the role of full-time caretaker and currently she isn’t in good enough health to be able to move him. He is confined to his bed most of the time and getting him into his wheelchair requires a lot of time, strength, and extra hands. He is unable to do any home improvements or repairs himself anymore. Before his paralysis, he was very active in the community, volunteering his time and talents to helping the youth with Parks & Recbasketball and ARC basketball. He redid the air conditioning system at his church and spent many days packing food for the Feed the Children foundation. Dan is now unable to get up and paint the inside of his house. The room he is in at home still has the nursery border and paint from when their son was a baby. Their son is now 22.
Upon seeing Dan’s home and the realizing needs he has – like not being able to take a shower or bath since his accident because of his bathroom access, we called in our areas the most trusted group of contractors with Just SCV’s Best. We have been blown away by the outpouring of their help. Surfaces USA is going to completely remodel Dan’s bathroom so he can wheel right into a shower. Elite Flooring is donating some much-needed area rugs to help with the hard tile flooring and Brodie Electric is going to add lighting to a much needed dark living room and Anaya’s Window Coverings is going to add some final touches with window treatment. ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING is providing all the premium paint materials and Sherwin William’s Paint is donating all of the sundry items like tape and plastic. I’m so proud of these amazing local contractors stepping up to help. This speaks volumes to our community’s values — when most contractors are scaling back their businesses, these contractors are focusing on giving back to their home town.
We are honored to have the opportunity once again to “Paint It Forward” to those who are working through difficult hardships by providing them with painting services to hopefully add some brightness to their lives. We will be going back to complete the painting project on March 6th, 2010. Stay tuned… for some “after” stories and pictures