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Big Sunday

Big Success

May 04, 2009 - United States

by Allison Glennon

This past weekend was Big Sunday and Real Medicine was at the Nuestra Clinica in Boyle Heights.

For the most part, the weekend went without a hitch. Like most events you spend 90% of the time worrying that it is going to fail, that no one is going to show up, that there wont be any food, that we wont be able to get everything finished, so in the end when people do show up, and there is food, and nearly everything gets finished, you are taken aback by how needless your fears were to begin with.

We had about fifteen people show up each day, some for both days and some who only came for one or the other. People came from a number of places to participate, three from FOX, some from Real Medicine, a group of high school students from Marymount and Taft high, and even a few people from the neighborhood who just happened to see the signs and want to help.

Saturday was mostly priming then painting the walls, staining cupboards and drawing stencils for painted detail above the doors and windows. Then Sunday we put the finishing touches on the walls, doors, and ceilings, and finished the detailed decorations above the windows and doors. We also started work on a rug that will be in the larger main room.

A special thanks to Nicole and her brother Brandon for coming in Sunday and helping to remove the glue from the floor! Much to everyone’s horror, when we ripped up the old rug instead of a nice layer of linoleum or hard wood we found a crazy patchwork of linoleum, hardwood, plywood, and who-knows-what-wood all covered with horrible sticky, stinky glue.

So, while everyone else painted the walls and decorated a rug, Nicole and her brother did the dirty work of heat-gunning the glue and scraping it off with metal scrapers. Now, thanks to their hard work the floor is no longer as heartbreaking and is now on the road to being just as welcoming as the rest of the space.

By the end of the weekend the room looked completely different. With a fresh coat of lavender paint, it feels open and inviting and though there is still a lot to be done before it is up and running, you can already get a feel for what it is going to look like in the end.

The first activities set to be held in the space will begin on May 30th with a Yoga class for children but before then we are already thinking of having another volunteer day for help with the rug and some more finishing touches. We have already made arrangements for some of the high school kids to come back and help out again for more community service hours but if anyone else would like to come lend a hand please stay tuned as more information will be posted in the future.

Thank you to everyone who came out to help and to all those who supported in their own way. Click here for more information about the Nuestra Clinica

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