ARLINGTON — A group of nearly a dozen National Honor Society students from Arlington High School took the time to touch up a historic landmark in downtown Arlington on Friday, April 19.
The building now occupied by Hallmark Homes NW at 410 N. Olympic Ave. dates back to 1901, according to Hallmark Homes NW owner and designated broker Wendy Smith, and while she and her fellow brokers’ business remodeled much of the building to coincide with their reopening under new ownership and a new name at the start of the year, the covered exterior staircase on the north side of the building remained in sore need of some sprucing up.
“We’d done the front, but not the sides, which is where it’s really showing its age,” Smith said. “It’s nice that these girls are taking the time to help beautify downtown Arlington. It goes to show the level of support for the city, when teens want to improve their community. Everyone is really passionate about Arlington’s history, and restoring this building to its original beauty is one way of honoring that.”
As the Honor Society students lined up single-file on the steep stairway to paint the sides of its steep corridor, while armed with two gallons of paint, 10 brushes and a couple of rollers, they received similar praise from Bev Bradshaw, the bookkeeper and licensed broker for Hallmark Homes NW.
“It’s fantastic that these kids are doing this,” Bradshaw said. “It’s really going to help out how this place looks. You might not notice it unless you’re coming from the north, but it’s an area that we’ve known was in need of being taken care of since we first got here. We’re a small business with a limited overhead, though, so it’s great that these kids are pitching in. I’ll give them credit for contributing to their community.”
Although the students assembled at 3 p.m., AHS senior Madi Tolliver anticipated that the group would easily be done in time for pizza and bowling by 6:30 p.m.
“We’re here for as long as it takes,” Tolliver said. “This building is more than a century old, so we want to show that good kids can come together for the community.”
