COEUR d'ALENE - Volunteers painted the town red during the first Summer Service Day at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds on Saturday.

OK, just part of the town.

More than 150 people gathered to beautify the fairgrounds and prepare it for the 2013 North Idaho Fair and Rodeo and other summer events. Volunteers rolled up their sleeves to scrape, sand, wash and paint barns, buildings, and benches, plant flowers and perform various maintenance jobs throughout the grounds.

Payton Okon, 17, of Coeur d'Alene, has been an employee of the fairgrounds for about two weeks, doing landscaping and maintenance, "constantly building and taking apart, and moving things," he said. Summer Service Day is a blast and a great idea, he added.

"I think it's a really good way for the community to connect with the fairgrounds," Okon said. "Obviously, everybody around town comes down for the fair, but this is a great opportunity for everybody to see this is what we have to do to get all that ready so that they can come down to the fair and have fun," he said.

Hillary Thompson and daughter Makenzee, 9, of Post Falls, got to the fairgrounds when the service day began at 8 a.m.

"I'm raising a pig in the fair," Makenzee said with a grin. "She's kind of a mutt." It's Makenzee's first year doing livestock, and second year in 4-H, but she has been involved through Cloverbuds for five years.

Makenzee is part of the Wild Westerners 4-H club, which was participating in a community pride event. The Wild Westerners decided as a group to knuckle down and help out for Summer Service Day. The club's community pride leader, Nicole Olson, said the club participates in many service projects during the year, but volunteering at the fairgrounds is especially worthwhile.

"I think this one's probably most important because we spend so much time here and it's kind of a give back," Olson said. "The fairgrounds is kind of the home away from home come August." She said it's nice to be able to give back to the fairgrounds because it is a great host to the 4-H clubs.

Another mom-and-daughter duo, Summer and Autumn Eddings, worked by seed planting with kids ages 8 and younger. Autumn, 14, said she taught a few girls some Lake City High cheers because she just made the varsity cheerleading team. They also washed and painted rocks as well as picked up litter.

"We did some trash pickup, just kind of teaching the kids about making the fair a better place," Summer said. "They're all looking forward to coming back to seeing their things growing and their rocks everywhere."

Summer is an employee, but Autumn volunteered her time because her mom said it was a good idea.

"I came, and I helped out, and I had a lot of fun doing it," Autumn said.

People were busy everywhere, and only stopped to take a break just before noon for a free "thank-you" barbecue, complete with a live guitarist.

After the break, everyone went back to their projects.

"We have a grounds crew that works really, really hard," said Kristi Blaver, marketing and public relations manager for the Kootenai County Fairgrounds. She said that the crew works all year, and will pick up wherever the volunteers' work ends.

"We have projects for all ages and all skill levels so (the volunteers) just had to sign up and we put them in a project that we thought would be a good fit for them," she said. Blaver said announcements for volunteers went out to 4-H groups and other people in the fairgrounds' network. People who wanted to volunteer had to apply by May 1. With such a large turnout, she said they will definitely do it again next year.

Rob Gaines, 15, power washed a small chapel adjacent other workers who were scraping paint.

"I want to get into the naval academy, and you have to have a lot of community service hours to get in," he said. His 4-H companion, 10-year-old Jay, observed as Gaines pulled the starter cord and blasted the building with water.

Volunteers worked until about 3 p.m., and headed home with paint in their hair and dirt on their hands and knees.

Fair info: www.northidahofair.com