Mural brings unity to teen center

Author: Kelly Janis

Thanks to dozens of cans of paint, some rolled-up sleeves and the spirit of collaboration, the walls winding down a long corridor in Middlebury's new teen center - located in the Russ Sholes Senior Center building on College Street, across from the Middlebury Market & Sama's Café - are now considerably less barren. On Jan. 19, a diverse array of members of the Middlebury community assembled at the center to paint a mural intended to encapsulate the sentiments of unity promoted by Dr. Martin Luther King.

The concept of the mural was born when Maegan Olivos '07 - now an AmeriCorps volunteer with the Service Politics Institute, which coordinates events in which local politicians join with members of their community to work on a specified project while dialoguing about pertinent issues - approached teen center director Erik Shonstrom with plans to bring the organization to Middlebury.

"It seemed like a natural fit," Shonstrom said, explaining that the center had already planned to hold some breed of event commemorating King.

To hammer out the specifics, Shonstrom sat down with the center's youth advisory council - a group of teenagers charged with deliberating on issues of importance to the facility - to talk about King, read several of his speeches and discuss the ideal manner in which to convey his vision. It was by means of this discussion that the mural's design began to take shape.

"Rather than having divisiveness, rather than having separation, this mural is about unity," Shonstrom said. "So we have Yoda, a Chinese guy and Gandhi playing polo on dragons, sheep and velociraptors." Situated alongside these quirkier portraits are more conventional depictions of solidarity across lines of difference - two African American and Caucasian men drinking from the same water fountain, for instance.

The unity embodied in the mural manifested itself similarly in the wide cross section of the community which turned out to produce it, including over 50 College faculty, staff and students, local middle school and high school students, community members and Selectboard representatives over the course of the day.

Support also came in a more material form. Local deejay Chuck Root, for instance, donated his equipment for the day so teens could mix beats with audio from King's speeches.

"This is all positive energy, and I'm psyched to be part of it," Root said. "That's why I'm here today. I just try to help provide a positive influence on these guys, so they stay out of trouble."

This desire to exert such an influence permeates the intentions of many of the other individuals who devoted considerable time to the undertaking. Nate Davis - who Shonstrom recently hired to work part-time at the center in order to help field the increased volume of teens - is a case in point. When asked whether he thought the day was a success, Davis did not have to think twice about his answer.

"The fact that you got a bunch of 13, 14, 15, 16-year-old kids here on a Saturday morning, motivated to do this mural? Absolutely," he said. "The great thing about something like this is that you get these young minds with creative needs, and you give them an outlet. It's a lot more constructive than writing '[expletive]' on the wall on the side of someone's business."

The center at large has been abuzz with this creative energy in recent months.

"It's been a huge success," Shonstrom said. "It's been busy. It's been crazy."

According to recently computed statistics, between special events and regular drop-in hours, the center has served over 1,500 teenagers since its inception. "In the beginning, we would get maybe 15 kids a day," Shonstrom said. These figures quickly skyrocketed. "Our busiest day in the past couple of weeks was over 60 kids."

The center's continued functioning hinges largely on the presence of a strong body of volunteers, a number of whom are drawn from the College.

"We've always had awesome support from the College," Shonstrom said, noting that several students have not only leant a hand with one-time events, but organized regular yoga and Chinese language classes. "We love College students, because it's a totally natural fit. They get the kids. They see what it's about. And they have a much higher tolerance for the noise than some of the older volunteers."