Bank's workers ready to lend hand
You know how tough it can be to find a good painter?
We're not talking about Van Gogh here, just somebody who can roll a few coats on a wall without charging you an arm and an ear and dripping all over the floor.
Officials at Harris Bank know and so do leaders at the Heritage YMCA Group that serves Naperville, Aurora and Oswego.
Which is why everybody's pretty happy that on Wednesday, more than two dozen Harris employees are expected to swap their cash drawers for paint brushes and buckets and head over to the Kroehler Family YMCA at 34 S. Washington St. in downtown Naperville. They'll spend a few hours -- from about 8 a.m. until noon -- making like Monet, painting an entryway and even doing some landscaping at the 97-year-old YMCA building.
It's all part of a company-wide volunteer day in which hundreds of Harris employees from throughout northern Illinois and Indiana will head into their respective communities to lend a helping hand, said Colleen Kroll, corporate communications manager.
Harris employees have participated in scattered Day of Caring-type activities in the past, Kroll said, "but this is the first time we've done it on this level."
R.J. Bartels, executive director of the Kroehler center, says the effort will be a "welcome addition to what we've done."
He said the Y completed several remodeling projects in August that converted space into an aerobics studio, a preschool education room and a teen center.
Truth be told, the Y staff did a lot of hard work on the project and wasn't exactly looking forward to tackling more painting.
"We're all pretty much tired of it," Bartels said.
That's music to the ears of Harris officials, who will dispatch groups of employees throughout the region to work at United Way-supported agencies, from Aurora (where they'll help set up a children's library) to Schaumburg (where they'll work at a resale shop).
Kroll says the initiative combines the start of the bank's annual United Way fundraising campaign with a celebration of the company's 125th anniversary. Managers have been urging employees to sign up, she said, "and it's being supported from the top on down."
Most of the Harris volunteers helping out at the Y will either live or work in Naperville. One volunteer who doesn't is Ellen Costello, but you can bet that's not going to raise any painted eyebrows among the crew -- she's the company CEO.
Even with the boss and all those other workers out doing good needs, Kroll says bank customers won't run into any problems Wednesday.
"They'll still have full access to all our services," she said.
Bartels, meanwhile, is ready to greet the painters with open tarps.
"One guy told his wife he was going to help paint the Y," Bartels said, "and she told him, 'I've been trying to get you to paint our house for years.' "