Artistic Contributions to the Community

Last Friday we were walking from the school district's offices in Shelburne across the parking lot to the new Shelburne town library. We were going there to hang flyers for the upcoming Community Budget Meeting on October 7th. (7:00 pm, CVU room 160!) The Pierson Library just completed an entire rebuild and it opened a week ago. It's a beautiful building.

As we got closer to the library, we spotted a teacher from the Shelburne Community School, Vasanthi Meyette, along with a group of 6th grade students. They were painting on the pavement in front of the new library's front door! Here's the story that Vasanthi shared about what was underway: 

We met Kristen from the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District last year during our Ecosystems/Water Quality Unit. She came to talk about runoff/storm water and the pollution from our daily lives and it’s affect on our local waterways. This fall Rethink Runoff sponsored a storm drain mural art contest with the Stream Team. The murals were to be painted in Shelburne! We decided to enter. Students worked alone or in partnerships, explored the Rethink Runoff website, and looked at other storm drain murals. They got inspired and drew some amazing designs and came up with many catchy slogans. We eagerly awaited the news about our designs. Finally, we found out that our designs had not been chosen, BUT, one of the artists whose design was chosen needed at least 50 community members to participate in painting her design! Kristen thought of my 6th graders. Julie Holmes, the artist, is a former SCS parent and now a CCS parent. She graciously connected with us and invited us to collaborate on the mural. She visited us earlier in the week so that we could talk about design, her vision and practice painting water drops. Today was the highlight when we actually got to leave our mark! We are so lucky that it is at the library for all to see and for students to show their families!

After that, we talked with Kristen to hear more about this and the partnership between the Winooski Natural Resource Conservation District and the Department of Public Works. We found out that another mural was being painted outside of the Shelburne Country Store practically across the street. We went over there and found two CVU students hard at work on a beautiful fall day. Heatheranne Lee also won the contest and her friend Muriel Spell was helping her paint the design.

We are thrilled to see students from CVSD contributing artistically and making a difference in our communities. Go to Shelburne to see the finished products!