Phil Scardina did not spend his summer laid back with a cup of Starbucks coffee in his hands. Instead he spent it repainting the school that was painted with the wrong type of paint, which was supplied by Starbucks two months before.

At 10 a.m. on April 27, more than 1,400 students, parents, members of the community and Starbucks personnel roamed the halls, joining together in a Starbucks-sponsored volunteer event. Many of the volunteers present worked all day painting the walls, cleaning the courtyards around Grady and other miscellaneous tasks.

Assistant principal David Propst, Starbucks district manager Terri Vish and art director John Brandhorst ran the project to renovate the school.

Vish, along with other managers from Starbucks and Kids & Pros, a local nonprofit organization, launched the service project by explaining what they had planned for the volunteers. The separate projects ranged from repainting the bathrooms to laying down fresh pine straw on the upper courtyard.

Sophomore Harrison Wilco gave up most of his Saturday to help with the project. Wilco recalled that painting was one of the main tasks across the school. The managers had volunteers repaint the cafeteria, which Wilco thought was not in need of repainting.

“It was rewarding to the school,” Wilco said. “We just did not do the most quality job.”

Approximately $200,000 worth of donations from Starbucks and several other organizations, such as Sherman Williams and Kids & Pros, were used to complete tasks that should not have been prioritized, Wilco said. Wilco also said the newly painted railings were already not lasting the test of time.

“The new paint, especially on the railings, wore off too quickly,” Wilco said.

One day of work would allow students to paint a few coats, which would not be enough to handle the massive amount of students that use the railings. Brandhorst did realize that the paint job was only temporary since there was not enough time in the day to completely paint it.

“The majority of the tasks that the volunteers worked on would take more than a couple of hours,” Brandhorst said.

In the months following Project Together, Brandhorst had to finish all of the projects that were left incomplete.

“They started a lot of projects [that day],” Brandhorst said. “I am now the sweeper.”

The class of 2013’s senior project, a cement stairway from the senior patio to the upper courtyard, was left incomplete at the end of the day. In the couple of weeks before school began, Brandhorst quickly finished the project with the help of several other students.

On the day of the event, Starbucks managers had promised Brandhorst that there would be professional contractors to help the volunteers with the cement pouring. No contractors, however, showed up, and neither did the paint.

Scardina continues to work on the unsatisfactory paint job. On the event, the wrong pant was used, so now it is up to Scardina to fix and complete the project. Propst thinks it is not all about the quality of the painting but how it affects the attitude of the students.

“It allowed the students to take ownership of their school,” Propst said.

The Green Room, which lies above the main theater and allows actors to prepare before shows, was completely redone.

“The only extremely noticeable change was the Green Room,” Brandhorst said.

The project leaders’ main concern was to utilize the donations given to it in order to repair the school and permanently boost  student morale. Propst hopes to organize a larger and much better volunteer event for Grady in the next year.

“We will have to organize one [event] twice the size of this one,” Propst said. “I have the sight.”

Brandhorst sees the good in this one-of-a-kind volunteer event. He agrees that the event boosted morale and laid groundwork for future projects.

“This was a rallying point for Grady,” Brandhorst said.