OAK HILL, WV (WOAY)- Fayette county just got a bit more colorful. The Fayette Prevention Coalition’s Youth Action Team painted a mural on the side of Oak Hill’s very own Pinheads bowling alley.
This started because 7 students in the youth action team had the opportunity to go to the Marshall Youth Empowerment Summit and had received funding for a project for their community. They came together and decided on this mural.
“So, we decided we wanted to do something really impactful and something that we don’t have a lot of. So we don’t have very many murals in the community,” said Lily Zukowski, one of the teen leaders. “And we thought it was a great way to tie in like prevention like Fayette County has healthy fun and different things like that.”
“And we were just kind of brainstorming ideas for what should be on the mural, and we decided it should be West Virginia themed Fayette County has healthy fun, we’re trying to promote like good healthy activities for kids to do. So that’s why there’s like bowling and kayaking and hiking on it,” added Kelsie Carte.
Kelsie was the lead artist on this project and explains how she feels seeing her work in this way. “I might cry because it’s really, I don’t know. It’s nice seeing something I made right on the wall.”
Leslie Caneda, an Artist and Art Consultant at Community Connections, explains how the kids were able to bring such a large mural to life.
“There are several ways to do it, but the way that we did it is we had one of our youths design the mural on a graphic design app called Procreate. And then I went in there and traced over it in black lines and then we projected it on the wall at night and had Sharpies. So that’s how you do it. You use a projector, and you can adjust how big or how small it is from there.”
But why did Pinheads let these kids paint a mural on their building?
“So, we loved the concept. But, you know, that’s 20% of it, the concepts part. But then the other thing that really struck me was the initiative that the kids were already showing. So it’s like if the kids are ready to build something, we’re 100% in support,” expressed Alison Ibarra, owner of Pinheads. “We could not be more grateful for the kids. And this has been such a fun process for me and for our staff here at pinheads. You know, we get to help the kids do something like this or even just give them a space. We feel like we’re doing what our mission was or, you know, our core values for our community is just to help make this place better off.”
And everyone at the ribbon cutting can all agree that this newest edition makes Fayette County better off.