Northside Elementary School students, teachers and community members celebrated the reveal of a new student-designed mural on Thursday.
The 15-foot-tall by 20-foot-wide mural is a product of collaboration between the school, Art Feeds, Main Street Siloam Springs and Arvest Bank. It was installed on the side of the downtown Arvest Bank building located at the intersection of University Street and Broadway Street.
"We think you are artists and we are so proud of your minds and your creativity that we put it on this wall for the community to see every day," Meg Bourne, of Art Feeds, told the more than 300 kindergarten students gathered for the reveal.
Art Feeds is an organization that provides therapeutic art and creative education curriculum and training to schools and children's organizations, according to a press release. Bourne described Art Feeds as an organization that believes that children are innovative, creative, curious, imaginative and our greatest resource, and provides programming to fuel those resources.
Kelsey Howard, director of Main Street Siloam Springs, said Arvest Bank helped Main Street secure an anonymous donation for a beautification project. The downtown improvements committee did a lot of brainstorming and eventually decided to partner with Art Feeds so students could design a mural.
"This is a really special town, this is a really special place downtown, and its your downtown and. ... we are all so lucky to have you artists contribute and make our downtown even more beautiful," Howard told students.
Nancy Efurd, Northside Elementary School librarian, and Eumia Fullerton, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) teacher, worked with kindergarten students for four weeks to develop the mural.
Students decided everything from the color to the theme "Health and Safety," then created the drawings on the mural, Bourne said.
Efurd said that when students came to the library, they talked about what it means to be a part of the community, including the Northside Elementary School community and the larger community of Siloam Springs. Students then talked about how everyone is part of the story of their community.
Fullerton said that in STEAM class, students brainstormed ideas about what kind of story they wanted to tell about Northside Elementary and Siloam Springs, then voted on the theme. Finally, students went back to the library and drew pictures of their favorite things that show health and safety in Siloam Springs.
"You might see some really creative things like mermaids swimming for exercise or unicorns playing soccer, and such things as that," Efurd said. "They all enjoyed the process so much and it was so good to see their creativity come out through the process."
Abby Spillane, a graphic artist for Art Feeds, scanned the students' images and worked for more than 40 hours to combine them into the mural.
A plaque honoring Superintendent Ken Ramey's leadership and commitment to putting children first is located next to the mural, according to Roger Holroyd, Arvest Bank president and school board member.
"We are so proud of your work and so thankful that we are all here together to realize how important you are to the Siloam Springs community," Ramey told students during the ceremony. "When we work together as a team we can get so many things done."
General News on 04/22/2018