Downtown Olympia's volunteer painting crew is shifting its brushes from graffiti cleanup to mural restoration, partnering with a local arts nonprofit to bring fading public artwork back to life.

LoveOly Painters, a program under the Olympia Downtown Alliance, announced the new direction in a blog post Monday, Aug. 10, written by Anna Schlecht, president of Rainbow Community Arts and a member of the ODA's Design Committee.

In 2026, the program moved away from its usual facade repainting to focus on restoring three well-known downtown murals: the NEXT mural, the untitled piece nicknamed the Cartoon Critter Line-up, and the Olympia Dragon Mural at Fifth Avenue SW and Columbia Street SE. Rainbow Community Arts artist Nichole Rose has led the hands-on restoration work on all three.

"Never underestimate the power of a couple of volunteers with a little paint and a lot of community spirit, because that's what has driven LoveOly Painters to help keep Downtown Olympia clean and vibrant, one paint job at a time," Schlecht wrote.

The program started in 2014 when a group of City of Olympia employees spent vacation time repainting the deteriorated facade of the old Griswold's building, a block that had become a hotspot for unlawful activity, including hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ+ community. That building site later became the Old 99 apartment complex. In 2015, LoveOly Painters partnered with the Olympia Downtown Alliance, gaining access to fundraising for paint and equipment.

Since then, volunteers have cleaned nearly every alley wall and many storefronts downtown. In the year before August 2026, the crew repainted more than 27,000 square feet. That's a 28-story building facade.

The 2026 pivot to mural restoration came through a partnership with Rainbow Community Arts, a nonprofit whose mission is supporting young artists of color in creating and restoring cultural works that represent diverse communities.

The Olympia Dragon Mural, created by artist Mymy Nguyen, features a side-facing dragon against waves of the sea, with a red column bearing Chinese characters reading "peace, harmony, community." At the mural's 2019 dedication, Schlecht described her philosophy on public art: "Some are commissioned for thousands of dollars, others painted for free as urgent artistic expressions," she said at the time, adding that as the coordinator of a downtown paint program, she loves supporting such projects however she can.

LoveOly Painters continues to work with the City of Olympia's Clean Team to respond quickly to graffiti tagging downtown. The city maintains an interactive mural map cataloguing approximately 70 murals across downtown Olympia.

Residents interested in volunteering can fill out the ODA's volunteer interest form at loveolydowntown.com/about-us/volunteer-sign-up/ and select "Spring CleanUp" and "Fall CleanUp" to be added to the next painting opportunity.