[August 2008]

Some Bell County teens are spending their summer bringing a bit of color and a window to a world of natural beauty to downtown Pineville.
  
The teens are helping paint a 700-square-foot nature scene on the side of the building that houses the Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency’s Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth Program. They are also painting a 420-square-foot mural on a nearby fence of silhouettes depicting a range of youthful activities.
  
By taking part in the ambitious project, the young artists—all participants in the Bell-Whitley WIA Youth Program—are improving their community and producing public works of art they can always claim as personal accomplishments, according to Janet Jackson, youth program coordinator.
  
“It’s something that gives them a sense of pride and empowers them because they were a part of it,” Jackson said. “It gives back to the community, and the students are taught a skills-based activity at the same time.”
  
For the last few weeks, the teens have been hard at work under the direction of artist, teacher, and mural designer Jaime Corum. Corum is a Bell County native whose previous experience includes a mural at the Louisville Slugger Museum.
  
The teens are painting various scenes on the building, including a feisty raccoon, a hardworking coal miner, and even explorer Daniel Boone as he crossed into what is now Bell County. Silhouettes representing a graduation ceremony and sporting events also appear on the nearby fence.
  
Jackson said the project has become the “talk of the town” in Pineville. In a way, she said, the larger nature mural is a replacement for a similar mural WIA Youth Program participants painted on the former Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency JobSight building about seven years ago. (Click here to read a story about the youth program's original mural on the former Bell-Whitley facility.)
  
Corum also designed that mural, which was nominated at that time for a Governor’s Award in the Arts.
  
Corum said locals missed the old mural after the Bell-Whitley building was torn down to make way for the construction of a new, much-larger facility that now houses the community action agency and the Bell County JobSight workforce center.
  
“Everybody was kind of upset and they were sorry to see the mural go,” she said.
  
But instead of simply recreating the old mural, which featured many local community and industrial accomplishments, Corum’s new design takes a more nature-oriented approach, Jackson said.
  
“We wanted to make it new and fresh again,” Jackson said.
  
Despite the change in focus, the new mural still celebrates Bell County. For example, instead of representing the Bell County High School Bobcats football team with images of football players as the old mural did, the team is represented symbolically with the image of an actual bobcat.
  
The teens in the youth program have also provided significant input into the project by suggesting the addition of specific animals and other details to the nature mural, Corum said.
  
“They’ll offer little suggestions which I’ll try to take,” she said.
  
The fence, she added, originally started off as a design featuring quilt squares until the teens balked at that concept.
  
“The kids decided they wanted something more youthful or youth oriented,” Corum said.
  
Jackson said 12 to 15 teens are at work on the project on any given day. Early in the project, they were joined on Mondays and Tuesdays by Bell County sixth graders. Jackson said the school system wanted to be involved with the project and provided a $500 grant toward its cost.
  
Bell County High School students Hannah Douglas and Joseph Jackson, both 16, said they are glad they participated in the youth program and the summer painting project.
  
Jackson said he learned things by working on the mural that could be relevant in the world of work.
  
“You have to do what they say, not what you want to do. You have to be here on time,” he said.
  
Douglas said she enjoyed helping create works of art that will beautify Pineville for years to come.
  
“It’s pretty fun and creative,” she said.
  
Jackson said the teens have learned skills including painting, problem solving, and working as a team during the project. They will also benefit from the mentoring they received from Corum.
  
Jackson said that the project also meshes perfectly into the framework of the WIA Youth Program, which provides a broad array of year-round services including: tutoring, study skills, alternative schooling, leadership development, mentoring, guidance and counseling. Participating teens and young adults can also be placed in both public and private-sector work experience jobs that match their interests and teach career skills.
  
The WIA Youth Program is administered by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), and provided locally by Bell-Whitley Community Action Agency.
  
“This fits in with our plan for the WIA Youth Program as far as helping them become more employable,” Jackson said. “Plus it gives them a connection to the community because they’ve actually created pieces that will be viewed throughout the community as long as the building is there.”
  
Both murals were finished in late July.

For more information on the Workforce Investment Act Youth Program in Bell County, contact Janet Jackson at 606-337-3044.