Jake Campbell, a 17-year-old high school student at Georgia School for the Deaf, said he was looking forward to the new color scheme and was so far enjoying the work.

“I enjoy painting and working,” he said, “moving things around and changing things around, renovating things.”

He said, “the colors are different, different, different. I really like that.”

Donald Raley, the Team Depot captain for The Home Depot in Rome, said stores in Calhoun, Cartersville and Cedartown also joined his team to help with the renovations being done in the GSD dorms.

“Home Depot got involved with Georgia School for the Deaf about four years ago,” Raley said. “We had been coming out to do kids workshops with their reading students. We noticed that they needed a lot of help, so we filed for a grant.”

That grant turned out to be a $10,000 boost for the project, and with the addition of donated paint from Behr, along with donations for sprucing up outdoors, the workers had the tools they needed.

In effect, students who are coming back to Cave Spring to stay in the dorm will find themselves in a whole new environment, which includes a booth where students can video conference in private and kitchenettes for students to use to make their own meals.

Tim Albert, the Student Life coordinator, pointed out that there was still plenty of work to do before the end of the weekend, including new paint jobs in the common rooms of the dorms for both the boys and girls areas.

“Most of the high school boys voted for green and yellow, the Tiger colors,” he said. “The elementary and middle school girls wanted a light violet, while the high school-aged girls decided on a darker purple.”

Fortunately for Albert — who also is in charge of the dorms — Team Depot was able to accommodate the requests.

American Sign Language translations for Tim Albert and Jake Campbell were provided by Melissa Williams.