(Radio Iowa) — Residents of more than 100 Iowa communities will get out the paint brushes and rollers once the weather warms up after being awarded grants in the “Paint Iowa Beautiful” program. Keep Iowa Beautiful associate director, Bill Jackson, says they partner every year with Diamond Vogel Paints to give communities free paint for projects. “The projects include anything from swimming pools, park benches, park tables, restroom facilities, city halls, anything that the public is involved in and invited to participate in,” according to Jackson.

Jackson says the idea is to help spruce up communities and get people involved. “In most cases, it’s volunteers for the local theatre or city hall — in some cases, a professional painter comes in. This year, we had probably a dozen to a dozen and a half requests for murals. And that requires an artist to be involved,” Jackson says. He says the cities will visit Diamond Vogel to get the paint, and projects will get started as soon as the weather allows. “Once they’ve bought the paint, have the project completed, they send the invoice to us at Keep Iowa Beautiful, and we reimburse them for the paint,” Jackson says.

He says it’s a great partnership with a company that makes the paint right here in Iowa. “Over the 17 years, Diamond Vogel has awarded over 11-thousands gallons of paint — for about one-thousand community project sin Iowa,” he says. Diamond Vogel was created in 1926 in Orange City as the company website says. You can learn more about the grants on the Keep Iowa Beautiful website at: www.keepiowabeautiful.com