Hi.

My name is Jennifer Hartzler.

And my story is about the wild geese sculptures.

The wild geese sculptures are 32 fiberglass sculptures located around the community, and they all have their own art piece.

The wild geese initiative started in 2018, and it was brought to us by Pennsylvania Council of the Arts and Community Partnerships in Mifflin County.

Usually, community partnerships partners with local businesses.

They purchase a goose, and they're kind of the liaison between the artist and the business.

The business, I think, has some say in where the goose goes, but they try to spread it around the area so that there's equal visibility.

We paint fiberglass geese because of Goose Day.

That's September 29, it's a local holiday that has really gained momentum in the past couple of years.

And it's a legend that if you eat goose during Goose Day, you won't want for money the whole year through.

So it's a quirky little local holiday that we celebrate.

The geese are 75 pounds, and they're about 5 foot high.

And there's actually a lot of surface area on these geese, so they take a lot of paint.

But they're really fun.

I teach high school art at Mifflin County High School, so it's a lot of fun getting to do these kinds of community projects in the summertime.

It's important for me to show these kids that a working artist also participates in community-based projects but also puts time into their own work.

You don't want to teach art to a kid but not show them that you can also do it too.

I have so far painted three of the geese around the community.

The geese that I have done thus far, there's one for Lewistown Hospital.

And that came about during the COVID epidemic.

They wanted to recognize the hospital staff, so we did a heroes type goose.

There's also a Kiwanis goose.

That one might be my favorite.

That one really highlights what the Kiwanis Club does for the community, especially with children.

That has a lot of blueberries on it because they do a blueberry sale every year.

The fun part about that one is when I was painting around the goose, I actually needed two more figures just because of the space that I didn't have figures for.

So I had my kids pose, so there's little caricatures of them on the goose.

So that was kind of neat.

And then also, the first goose that I did is in Downtown Lewistown.

And what I wanted to do for that one is just really capitalize on the fact that the river is part of the county.

And there's just so much natural resources around here, so I painted certain landscapes of the river.

I think the most fun part or the most rewarding part about this project is the fact that we do have so many local artists and so many different types of local artists, and that really adds to the sense of community around here.

I think because we're a rural area, people tend to overlook just the talent that we have here.

But seeing these geese really kind of brings that to light.

The thing I love about living in Mifflin County is that it's a great place to raise a family.

I actually moved away from the area for quite a while.

And it was just important for me to get back home because that's where family is.

And I just wanted my kids to have the same experience growing up as I did.