Bloomfield students, nonprofit organization work together to produce community mural

The last day of summer school on June 29 was a little more festive than usual for approximately 150 Bloomfield School District students who took part in the painting of a community mural on the wall of a local business.

Working in conjunction with Save the Children, an international nonprofit organization that aims to transform the lives of young people, district officials arranged for the students to engage in a series of activities designed to celebrate community partnerships and promote wraparound support for them.

The most notable activity on the agenda was the painting of a community mural on the east wall of the Kare Drug location at 100 Church St. in Bloomfield. With the help of local artist Luke Paul, who had outlined the figures in the mural in black paint a day earlier, the students took turns filling in the colors on a paint-by-numbers basis.

Paul, whose work is prominently featured in the Art in the Alley murals program in downtown Farmington, has painted a number of murals before, but this was his first time collaborating with students. He said the experience was a satisfying one for him, and he hopes it inspires more than a few of them to pursue creative outlets of their own.

“It’s better than a tablet and a video game,” he said, smiling.

Noting that some of the students — most of whom were kindergartners through fifth-graders — had strayed outside the lines with their paint, Paul said he would touch up some of the rough spots in the mural and add a few more elements to it before calling it done. He was considering adding some chiles to the north end, explaining he would opt for red and green.

“Both,” he said. “Gotta have Christmas.”

The 60-foot-by-12-foot mural features a river and sandstone formations, but it also includes elements that depict life in Bloomfield. Lynda Spencer, the principal at Blanco Elementary School, said students’ parents were surveyed about what they wanted to see in the painting, and that led to the addition of a football player, a firefighter a hot air balloon, a student reading a book and an astronaut, among other elements.

Spencer said the painting of the mural was a big hit with the children.

“Oh, yeah, they had a blast,” she said. “It improved our last-day attendance because everybody wanted to be here.”

Spencer said when the students had taken their turn with a paintbrush, they were ushered across the street to the parking lot of the closed Wells Fargo bank, where they rotated through several stations, including face painting and cornhole games and a station where they were invited to put their handprint on and sign their name to a community canvas that will be used to commemorate the occasion.

Yaha Aguilera, the state director of Save the Children, said the June 29 activities mark only the beginning of her organization’s collaboration with the district. She said Save the Children would be establishing an in-school tutoring program this fall at each elementary school and already has started a home visits program for families in the district to help determine what the students need in order to succeed.

But she was especially pleased with how the community mural project went.

“I’m really excited, because New Mexico is more of an artistic state,” she said. “We’re new to New Mexico, and we wanted to give the kids inspiration. This symbolizes our partnership with Bloomfield.”

Selece Gathings, the community and family support program manager for the district, said planning for the June 29 event began months ago. Work on the mural began at 8:30 a.m. and concluded a little before 11 a.m., she said.

As the noon hour approached, the students were being fed a lunch of chicken strips and fry bread. They also heard from Superintendent Kim Mizell, who encouraged them to spend the rest of their summer productively and be well prepared when classes resume in August.

“It’s so exciting we can do something like this with Save the Children,” she said, adding that she hopes her students were inspired by the experience. “Eliminating learning loss has been a big challenge through the pandemic. We’re still trying to catch them back up.”

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Save the Children helps organize morning of activities for students