A group of Carnegie Mellon student volunteers boards the elevator from the fourth floor of the parking garage. One of them pushes the G button, but when the floor bell dings, the #5 lights up. A collective groan breaks the silence. “We’re going the wrong way!” someone mumbles.

Finally, the occupants tumble out onto the ground floor of Children’s Hospital. Mimicking a Wizard of Oz theme reflected in the decor, the students follow a bright yellow ribbon painted on the hospital floor, leading them to the corridor windows they have volunteered to repaint. Some color and cheerfulness is needed along this route; it is heavily trafficked during the week by sick children going for checkups and treatments.

Right now, a tubby cartoon man languishes in Bermuda shorts, his polka-dotted floaties flaking away around him. The black coif of Snow White sadly shows several bald patches, and most of the woodland creatures she frolics with have faded to shadows.

The volunteers have come prepared. Armed with sponges, imagination, and fresh pots of paint, some start attacking the glass, scrubbing it clean. Others run outside to tape up cartoon posters as templates. The quiet mumbling about snooze buttons and Starbucks regrets begins to give way to laughter and joking about what they will create.

Some brave the artwork freehand. Abbey McClean, the red-haired, purple-skirted student coordinator for this service project, leads the fray. Paintbrush in hand, the senior history major studies her blank window. “I think I’m going to do a kite first,” she muses, “and then we’re going to fool around with maybe a dancing star.” Next to her, Lillian Chang, a robotics graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, paints a clownfish that blows bubbles at an enormous yet delicate blue and violet butterfly. The chatter and laughter increase throughout the hallway as the bright pictures grow on the windows, the sacrificed Saturday morning forgotten.

Someone else has sacrificed his normal Saturday routine as well. At a time when most other children his age might be at home watching morning cartoons, a blonde boy is cuddled in his mother’s arms as she makes her way down the corridor, rolling an i.v. stand beside them. The students are intent on their work, and the mother is equally intent on not being in the way. She walks slowly, perhaps for the comfort of the child she carries, or perhaps so as not to disturb the bantering painters. As they pass, the boy turns his face away from the solace of his mother’s neck and watches, wide-eyed, as the students add final touches to their colorful cartoon creations. He chews on his chubby fist and smiles. — Elizabeth O’Brien