More than 60 University students registered through Volunteer LSU spent Saturday painting and repairing homes in a Mid City Baton Rouge neighborhood during FixUp! Mid City — Baton Rouge’s largest all-volunteer housing repair initiative.Six houses as well as the Greater St. Luke Baptist Church and a Baton Rouge Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation building were given facelifts from FixUp! volunteers this year. Volunteer LSU participants, which has participated in FixUp! since the organization’s creation in 2006, painted and repaired two houses, said Michael Rhea, Volunteer LSU director.”Students had a great time while being able to make an extremely positive impact on the lives of Baton Rouge community members,” Rhea said. “Everything went smoothly, and LSU students did a great job.”Participating in his first FixUp!, political science junior Ryan Sinitiere, said he got involved with the event because he enjoys helping others and thought it would be a good way to give back to the community.”We helped paint houses  — an easy task that really helped,” Sinitiere said. “We really made a difference. I look forward to helping out again next year.”Anna Normand, chemistry and coastal environmental science sophomore, participated in her second FixUp! as both an officer of Volunteer LSU and as a member of the Scotch Guard. Normand said she had fun and was able to become closer with people she worked with at FixUp!”Someone once told me that special connections are created when people work together on a service project to complete a common goal,” Normand said. “I found I bonded with the people I was working with – telling stories and sharing experiences while we painted.”Mid City Redevelopment Alliance, an organization started by Baton Rouge General Hospital in 1993 to help revitalize Mid City, sponsors FixUp!, which has repaired more than 250 homes, six schools and seven non-profit agencies in its 17-year of existence.The homes repaired at FixUp! are owned by low-income, elderly and disabled residents. Possible recipients must qualify financially for the program by earning less than $1,600 a month, said MCRA community development manager Ted Devall.”Most of the time, the recipients of this program are people on social security and make around the $600-700 a month range,” Devall said. “Those are the people we try to target and help most of all.”The Office of Community Development donates supplies yearly to the event, but Devall said this year the OCD supplied FixUp! with all of the needed supplies except paint.”The paint came from Habitat for Humanity,” Devall said. “They decided to help us this year and donate the paint.”Volunteer LSU has been a “wonderful team” at FixUp!, Devall said.”They are very helpful in coming out and giving back to the community, so I really look forward to continuing our relationship with LSU annually,” Devall said.Created after Hurricane Katrina to bring an organization dedicated to community service to campus, Volunteer LSU’s mission is to promote a lifelong commitment of service for students while they’re at the University. The organization participates in several community projects each year, and though FixUp! was Volunteer LSU’s last project of the year, Rhea encourages students to get involved next year.”Anybody who wants to be a member can be a member – you participate in one of our projects, and you’re part of our organization,” Rhea said.—Contact Brianna Paciorka at [email protected]