ADAMH and Reynoldsburg City Unveil Livingston Mural
The Alcohol Health, Drug, and Mental Health Board of Franklin County (ADAMH) might not be your first guess if I asked you who might be funding a myriad of community murals. Their name and the connotation that title brings with it aren’t exactly synonymous with artistic murals. Nontheless, ADAMH has been funding a number of those murals, particularly one in our very own community. Reynoldsburg City Schools and The City of Reynoldsburg has partnered with ADAMH, and unveiled their latest project yesterday.
The mural, located in the front of Reynoldsburg High School’s Livingston Campus, shines a light on a multitude of different messages. It’s only words, “live in the moment”, are accented with smiling children and patterns which include the tomato. Volunteers and project leads say the process of creating the mural is a way to bring communities together to create conversation. Reynoldsburg volunteers helped create the mural, and worked with professional artist Eliza Ho of ALTernative. At the opening ceremony Eliza mentioned the help of several Reynoldsburg students and volunteers in the communtiy, saying the conversations they had while painting are key motivators in her work.
ADAMH says the mural projects (currently sprouting accross Franklin country comunities) are being done in an effort to create conversations around mental health and reap the other benefits of public murals. CEO of ADAMH David Royer stated in the opening ceremony that the mural, and others like it, are being created as a “health promotion concept, allowing [the] community to come together and define itself.”
Positive attitudes about the mural don’t stop with ADAMH and Eliza Ho, several city representatives stated their optimism regarding the Mural on Tuesday’s event. Reynoldsburg Schools Superintendent Melvin Brown said “I think it’s a real statement of what the community can come together and do. No matter what the mural looks like or what the images are, it’s a representation of our community coming together to work toward a common goal.”
The Reynoldsburg mural is finished, and can currently be viewed in the front of the Reynoldsburg High School Livingston Campus. For more content related to the Reynoldsburg community, check back to thisisreynoldsburg.org.
