Volunteers from across the community turned out for Project Shine events in the Hickman Mills and Independence School District.

The July 13 event invited the public into selected schools to help paint, landscape and clean prior to their opening.

In total, volunteers worked in six schools - five in Independence and one in Hickman Mills.

Watch slideshow on Vimeo. 

The Project Shine has become an annual community event starting when schools were transferred from the Kansas City Public Schools to Independence the summer of 2008.

Since then, the event has become an annual summer volunteer activity in the Independence School District and later was also adopted in the Hickman Mills School Districts. 

Schools were volunteers worked were: 

Hickman Mills: Smith-Hale College Prep

Independence:  Bridger Middle School, Korte Elementary, Mill Creek Elementary, Nowlin Middle School and Three Trails Elementary.

The Project Shine event received extensive coverage by local television stations.

See stories: Fox 4 story  | KCTV-5 | The Examiner