Today marks the completion of a COLORFUL COMMUNITIES™ project a collaboration with PPG, our industrial coatings partner, that helped revitalize Park High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Colorful Communities program provides volunteers and paint products along with financial contributions to bring color and vitality to communities where our companies operate, such as in the greater Minneapolis area.
The project brought together nearly 45 volunteers who used approximately 50 gallons of PPG Paints products. The PPG Foundation provided an additional $5,000 to Park High School to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education initiatives.
Park High School, which has approximately 1,900 students in ninth through 12th grades, is part of South Washington County Schools, an east metro school district serving all or parts of the communities of Cottage Grove, Newport, St. Paul Park, Woodbury, Afton, Denmark and Grey Cloud Townships. The school offers personalized programming that ranges from multi-age and gifted education to STEM courses and a K-12 Spanish immersion pathway.
“We are grateful for the support of our local businesses like PPG and Andersen Corporation that will allow us to provide beautiful workspaces for our students to collaborate and learn about STEM fields while promoting inclusion,” said Ginger Garski, principal, Park High School.
Volunteers painted the school’s Inventor Space, a new makerspace that will provide opportunities for students to use high-tech tools in a collaborative, supportive and educational environment. The Inventor Space is funded, in part, by Andersen Corporate Foundation. The project also included the revitalization of several STEM classrooms in a PPG Paints color palette of Blue Lullaby, Stonehenge Greige, Sea Sprite, Moss Point Green and Cajun Spice to create bright and colorful learning environments throughout the school.
“Andersen is proud to join PPG and Park High School to create an environment that fosters engaging STEM learning opportunities for students,” said Steve Kirby, vice president of manufacturing engineering and strategic sourcing, Andersen Corporation. “By supporting programs that encourage STEM education we are helping today’s students develop skills that will help them become tomorrow’s leaders in some of the world’s fastest growing careers.”
The Colorful Communities program, PPG’s signature initiative for supporting communities, aims to protect and beautify the neighborhoods where PPG operates around the world. Through the Colorful Communities program, PPG’s committed volunteers contribute their time and PPG paint products to help transform community assets – from painting classrooms, to bringing color to a maternity ward and redesigning a playground. Since 2015, PPG has completed more than 125 Colorful Communities projects, impacting more than 4 million people in 23 countries.
We protect and beautify the world, Colorful Communities and PPG Paints are trademarks and the PPG Logo is a registered trademark of PPG Industries Ohio, Inc.
Andersen, Renewal by Andersen, Silver Line and American Craftsman are trademarks of Andersen Corporation and its subsidiaries.
Posted: June 21, 2018
