Student artists decorate Mark Twain

By Meghan Ledden

April 16, 2010 No Comments

More than 100 volunteers came to paint the halls of Mark Twain Elementary last Saturday for the Murals for Minds philanthropy project sponsored by the Student Government Association.
Missouri Western students and other volunteers in the community helped create a brightly colored environment for the students and faculty of Mark Twain.

The doors opened at 9 a.m. for volunteer registration. Work began around 10 a.m. Each mural was assigned a lead artist and depending on the size of the mural, had anywhere from five to 15 volunteers. The lead artists came to the school Friday evening and sketched the outlines of the murals onto the walls. Saturday morning the volunteers filled in the drawings with paint.

On the main floor of the building five murals were constructed. In the basement, two larger murals were completed and two more are to be completed in the cafeteria.

Mark Twain Principal Pam Kent is excited to see the reaction from the students when everything is finished.

“I can’t wait until they go down to breakfast Monday morning,” Kent said. “They’ll turn the corner and they’ll all be going, ‘ahh!’”

SGA had some help from other Missouri Western organizations like Alpha Omega, Phi Sigma Kappa and the Griffon Arts Society. SGA President Josh Todd began his day at 8 a.m. organizing and registering the artists and volunteers.

“It’s really exciting. More exciting than exhausting,” Josh Todd said. “I just helped with the supervising, organizing and cleaning up. The artists organized their own volunteers.”

While not every lead artist was an art student, freshman Jeremy Todd, younger brother of SGA President Josh Todd, is a graphic arts major. Jeremy Todd said he had a maximum of five volunteers helping him and the mural still took lots of time.

“It took about two hours to actually draw the outline,” Jeremy Todd said. “Then took the entire day, so about seven hours, to fill it in.”

Work on the second half of the project begins Saturday, April 17 at 9 a.m. Volunteers are encouraged to come back to help. Any volunteers were unable to come the first weekend are more than welcome to come for the second half. Mark Twain Elementary is located at 705 S. 31st Street.