(train sounds) Bailey Fry-Schnormeier: I had a student come to me, Tatelyn Schultz, and she wanted to apply for a scholarship.

And so she had this idea to work with students who had community service hours and pair them with artists to create a mural.

Originally I thought with Tatelyn we would have maybe one or two murals and from there we were blessed with a summer full of painting walls.

♪♪ ♪♪ Tatelyn Schultz: We just initially wanted to do those two murals and then a month later it's like oh, we have $40,000 in funds to pretty much paint the whole community and bring in artists.

May Ling Chuong: She contacted me and told me that they were doing this big project in Creston and I should come back and be a part of it to bring in local artists from diverse backgrounds.

Andre Davis: Once I heard the opportunity to be able to do this art I had to jump on it.

It was really exciting.

Gabe Carroll: I don't think I really grasped the concept of how much it was going to be from the start.

I thought, oh yeah we'll have a couple of cool things here and there.

But it turned out to be a huge project and really kind of changed the face of a lot of our uptown.

Blake Schnormeier: An overwhelming response was that everybody did want to be a part of it and they wanted to really give that space for artists to create their artwork.

And so not many of the building owners even asked for the content of what the murals would be on their buildings, they just had that full trust.

And so I think that that's really unique with having, being a part of the community and having that support.

Jocelyn Blazek: I was super excited.

We had been looking for a project that involved mentorship and specifically that focused on our juveniles aged middle school and high school.

Alexandria Whitfield: I'm not involved in very many activities with the school.

I don't do sports or any groups so it feels nice to have something that I could join in.

(nature sounds) Alexandria Whitfield: There was an artist that kind of used me as a reference for one of the murals.

And so my family came out, my sister and my mom came out and helped us sketch it on the wall and paint it and finish it and everything.

Bree Daggett: The whole time we were all painting it was quiet.

Like, we didn't have any music playing or anything.

We were all just painting.

It was like Zen in my opinion.

And I remember just thinking this is really cool to create a space and an opportunity for people to just show up and just do work.

There's no expectation about conversations or behaviors or attitudes.

We're just here to do this together.

Ash Hays: Brendan and I were here almost every day.

We worked on them all from helping with last minute mock-up changes to tracing them at night, starting the priming and painting and then we also got to do our own mural so that was super cool to have that individualized experience from everything that we learned before.

Brendan Millslagle: Mine is a portrait of my face and then I have headphones that are connected to a heart that has the pride flag on it.

And then over my mouth it says, listen to your heart, because I feel like a lot of the time we're always caught up in what other people are trying to put onto us and we're not really focusing on what we believe in for ourselves and then we just get lost.

Ash Hays: It's all about growing where you're planted because in Creston especially you hear a lot of dissing the town and it's just really about trying to get people to grow where they're at and help build each other.

May Ling Chuong: I have two names.

May Ling is actually my American name.

My authentic Chinese name, I guess you could say is -- which means lotus.

So lotus actually is kind of how I see myself.

I symbolize myself in that way.

Bree Daggett: I just wanted to do something that was kind of encouraging and uplifting, especially considering we were going into the summer, the pandemic was still happening and it was just all these things were unprecedented.

And so I just wanted to do something that was a little more encouraging.

Bailey Fry-Schnormeier: We started off with several local artists that were just wonderful for the students to work with and to get to see their designs and learn more about them.

And then from there we had other opportunities.

We were able to bring in professional artists who are muralists and had experience working with youth.

And so we were able to work with a lot of really amazing, talented people.

David Marroquin: I believe in rural revitalization, how important it is for smaller towns.

And so what we've been doing here trying to -- the public space that has been forgotten for so many years, we believe that that changes the lives of the people that live in the community.

So art is a way of doing it quick, fast and showing people the value of those forgotten places.

♪♪ Andre Davis: When I walk around I'm able to see how much time and dedication people have put into the murals and I've been able to see while working on them all of the smiles and joy people have put into them.

And when people walk past them they always make good comments about it or they always want to stand there and take pictures.

Maigen Carrall: I think it was a very good project.

I think it gave them something to be proud of, something to give back to the community.

I had a lot of students who were excited to show parents and friends what part they took in it.

♪♪ Ashton Cheers: It has inspired me to create more.

Brian Zachary: And what a great project.

I mean, money is spent here in Creston, the kids are from the area and it goes onto Creston walls.

Sarah Scull: This particular project was very exciting because of how quickly it came together and how many murals they were able to complete in such a short amount of time and the number of community members and students and the demographic of people that took part or contributed their time and energy to the project was really amazing.

Tatelyn Schultz: I was a part of that, I was there when that was just a blank wall, you know.

It's all really great.

Bailey Fry-Schnormeier: It's just really unreal.

It was really hard to believe, it was hard to wrap our head around and we just kept going out day after day and just painting.

Yeah, we never imagined it to turn out to be what it was.