Sheldon, Iowa — The last of the buildings at the Prairie Arts Historical Park is getting painted this week.
Karin Vanden Berg with Prairie Arts tells us about it.
(as said:) “It’s the Lynn School and it is the last one of the many that had to be done. We put in for a grant to Diamond Vogel and it’s a grant to get paid for Paint Iowa Beautiful. It is gorgeous. It’s going to be great. They gave us nine gallons of paint. So with nine gallons we have to prime it and get it painted and we’ve had volunteers come out and then scraping the building. God bless them. And tomorrow from 8 to 6 and Friday from 8 to noon, they’re going to be out there painting.”
She says that it’s actually a mission project for a local church.
(as said:) “We have the youth group from the Methodist Church. It’s called “Impact”… them and the pastor and the youth pastor and a few other adults…there’s 20 kids will be coming out and doing a mission job here in Sheldon, which I think is wonderful. This is the last of the schools that need to be painted. It’s in dire need of it, but it’s going to look beautiful when it gets done. We’re really excited about it.”
According to Vanden Berg, COVID-19 has changed this a little.
(as said:) The kids usually take a mission trip every year and they go down to Missouri and do things and they worked very hard in the heat over a hundred degrees usually and this year because of COVID-19 maybe side to do something in town to just do a little mission work right here in Sheldon. So they did ask up to the City and they did speak with Greg Geels and Greg suggested me to call him and I said gosh that’s my church. I said, yeah, I will. So I was really excited to find out that they wanted something to do. So they’ll be doing a lot of things besides getting the painting done. There will be yard work done, windows washed, weeds pulled, and things like that. So they’ll be doing a lot of stuff that we usually have other volunteers that have come but with COVID-19 that kind of all fell away so we didn’t get the help that we usually do. So this is going to be a blessing.”
Vanden Berg tells us a number of people have helped them to scrape off the old paint.
(As said:) “We had one gentleman …Craig Van Meeteren… he comes whenever he can. He works for Mid-American and we had Sally Boscaljon and Katie Van Velzen and Erin Brown and her children came out and my husband was out there scraping too.”
The Prairie Arts Historical Park is right along Highway 18 in Sheldon, between the east Casey’s and the old Shopko building. The park features a historical 1870 pioneer home, a Sears and Roebuck Home now housing the Wansink Gallery, and four country schoolhouses from around the area.
