Dad's Club Revamps Local Couple's House

If you drove along Arlington Boulevard yesterday near the Mira Vista Golf and Country Club and Madera Elementary School you might have noticed that there was a large group of men in the front yard of one of the houses wearing bright orange shirts and walking around with power tools, ladders and pruned tree branches.

The shirts were decorated with a bolt of lightning and the letters DC above a combination of a drill and a cannon.  A slogan emblazoned across the T-shirts said, "For those about to work, we recruit you." The back of the shirt said, "Back in orange." 

The group of locals from Kensington and El Cerrito consisted of fathers from the Dad's Club, a non-profit organization that helps benefit the children of Kensington Hilltop Elementary School, located directly above the Kensington library, by sponsoring and promoting extracurricular activities with  the help of local parents.

The work parties contribute to the upkeep of the campus and classroom environment. The Dad's Club works closely with the school's PTA and the Kensington Education Foundation, two other non-profit organizations, to raise money through events such as the Garden Party, where work parties are often auctioned to bidders.

The services and events help children at Hilltop continue to enjoy the arts, computers, sciences and many other programs that are threatening to disappear under recent budget cuts. Many El Cerrito residents' children attend Kensington Hilltop Elementary School.

"Imagine not having these programs," says David Paige, a Dad's Club member in orange shirt. "We have them because the parents get involved."

The owner of the house, Paul Normington, said, "Forty people showed up to help. We happened to set it on our anniversary and they got into the spirit."

Yesterday's work party was the fruit of an auction won by Paul Normington at a school event earlier this year.

Normington said that with the help of the work party, they stained the back deck, painted three rooms, installed a counter and pruned backyard trees. A pile of branches stood as evidence in the front yard.

The men relaxed and with beers and wine provided by Normington and his wife Cherry at the end of their long work day to chat about local events while their kids, many of them from Kensington Hilltop Elementary, played with a soccer ball in the backyard.