Mural Painting at St Francis Lead Safe Home

Public Allies (an AmeriCorps program) has given me amazing opportunities in service. Last fall, I got to participate in the making of a new community garden. On Martin Luther King Day, we showed a film on the Children's Marches and then played scrabble in an elderly home (I love Scrabble, and I love listening to the stories of old folks).

For our spring "Global Youth Service Day," I was asked to lead a team to provide a mural for a lead-safe home in Hartford. Honored, I accepted and planned for the day": a simple, but colorful mural for the children who live in this home to enjoy while they spend time in the small, fenced in yard.

With paints and brushes at the ready, the team arrived as I was drawing the design onto the six 4' x 8' sheets of plywood. 

We blocked in a lot of the colors pretty quickly. Then the wind started, and the temperature began to drop quickly. With the gusts of wind came spilled paint.

The first 4' x 8' panel:

The third (apparently I am missing a photo of the second!):

The fourth:

The fifth:

The sixth:

None of them are finished! The cold and wind soon drove everyone inside, and the coordinators and I decided to call it a day. I've decided to return in a couple weeks to add the finishing touches - more trees and animals, and people enjoying their day along the rainbow hills.

 
Poor grass...

With hope the murals will brighten up the days of children who will come to live here. Go Mural Team!

McGivney Mural

This week hailed the start of mural workshops for us Public Allies in Bridgeport. I and my "mural pod" partner Shon facilitated workshops with lead artist Sergio Escobar.

The McGivney Community Center caters to a slew of kids in an after school program that helps them with their homework and exposes them to new experiences and opportunities to build skills. On the side of the building hangs a mural painted on plywood. It's been there for about 8 or 9 years, and somewhere in the duration of its existence, got tagged.

This week, the kids named themes for a mural, talked about community, engaged in team building games, and came up with their own drawings for design ideas. Next week the paint meets the plywood!

Boom! Bridgeport Beautifies

I want to share something that is very near and dear to my heart.

I and nine other Public Allies in the Bridgeport area have created a team service project that is just amazing. We created a blog today to help inform would-be volunteers and collaborators about further details, and how they can be a part of the movement even when we have reached full capacity on what we can manage.

It's bare bones right now, but it will get updated soon with info on seed bombing, moss graffiti, and street clean up.

Even if you don't live in Bridgeport, you can have your own beautification project in your neighborhood. Coordinate a clean up, or get involved in a local community garden. There are even funds and organizations out there that can help you design and create a neighborhood mural. Get creative, start networking, and tap into whatever resources you can - it will be well worth it in the end.