Community Mural To Bring Neighborhood Together

The Happy Valley Community Crossroads project, a neighborhood collaboration based on painting an intersection wide mural at Harris and 22^nd in Happy Valley, has been granted Bellingham’s approval for a paint day in early 2014.

The project is headed by Aaron Walters and Daniel Tucker, both members of the Happy Valley Neighborhood Association. They have been running monthly meetings for the project since early 2013.

“It link up with a lot of other issues,” Tucker said. “Pedestrian safety is something that comes up on a regular basis at the neighborhood association meetings. Everyone has that story about a near miss accident with a car.”

The goal behind the mural is to not just to make the intersection more eye-catching to potential speeders and reckless drivers, but to create a community effort that the neighborhood can really be proud of, Tucker said.

“[It’s about] creating a way for people to do something in the neighborhood that’s fun and interesting,” he said. “You probably have some really interesting neighbors you haven’t even met, [this is] about community building.” 

Intersection repair is the term regularly used for this type of project, he said, which can stretch out to include renovating other areas in the neighborhood, including adding gazebos, benches and more.

While not all community members have been following the project since its inception, one such Jim Cozad is still aware of the neighborhood’s sometimes packed streets.

“We have all kinds of places that don’t even have sidewalks,” Cozad said. “But one of the things that is nice about a small community is that we have that strong neighborhood association.”

Happy Valley continues to gain new interest from community members from around Bellingham, such as Dave Schmalz, who has been living in Bellingham for 33 years.

Schmalz has lived in Happy Valley for only five year comparatively, but already is looking forward to what street art can do for the community, he said.

“It’s a great way to bring the neighborhood together with new ideas,” he said.

Funding Walters came upon from a community work grant is going to cover most of the budget for the mural, Tucker said.

 The physical painting work will involve the community playing a larger role, coming together in a neighborhood wide painting and block party, he said. Once painted, the intersection wide mural will serve as a permanent fixture to the neighborhood.

“Even if there’s no stop sign, if there’s this huge colorful painting in the street, cars will slow down and check out their surroundings before they drive through it,” he said.

The mural’s design was chosen from a contest held for elementary schoolers in the area. The winning design was by Willow Hughes, a 6^th grader from Fairhaven Middle School.

Tucker went around the neighborhood and collected signatures to approve the design, bringing in neighbors and community members that otherwise might not have even been aware of the project, he said.

A community art project should reflect the community it comes from, and be a collaboration of efforts that reflects its own environment, he said.

“There’s already a lot of public art projects like things downtown, where city government spends money on a big sculpture, and it just gets airdropped as it were, with no real connection to the community or no real meaning or involvement for people who live there,” Tucker said. “It’s just some artist who made this giant piece of stainless steel that apparently has some significance.”

Tucker has experienced painting murals before but takes on the Community Crossroads as his first community wide effort. He looks forward to tackling community based art and says the project is only the beginning for a larger center in Happy Valley.

The project entered its first stages of planting in January of 2013, when both heads of the project had seen similar projects online, deciding to take up creating one in their own home, Happy Valley.

Walters also manages a blog pertaining to the project, with updates whenever the project climbs over another hurdle, found at Happy Valley Community Crossroads on Blogger.

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The Happy Valley Neighborhood Association snagged a win recently, as one of the 2013 recipients of the local Peace Builder award.

The award, handled by the Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center, goes out to various bodies, persons and organizations in the county who serve wellbeing in various ways, from public servants to community members.

The association won with its last South Side Community Meal, which gathered over 100 community members in a social gathering to unite the community.

Award recipients, along with members of the community for a price, will gather on Nov. 15 at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal for the awards’ official gala.

The gala will be a night of recognition and celebration, holding a silent auction, live music, youth poetry and more, with the 11^th annual event.

The Dispute Center holds Whatcom County to values such as empowerment and integrity, as it uses such and others to bring collaboration together in order to serve the county.

One of the organizations main goals is to give community members the tools they need to deal with conflict, a goal reflected in this celebration of a community serving community.

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Application for the Repurposing Larrabee Think Tank committee ended on Nov. 1, and the group will soon start discussion of what to do with the Larrabee Elementary building after it closes in June of 2014.

Once members for the think tank are picked, the first in a series of meetings will be held on the Nov. 24.

The cast of the committee contains neighborhood representatives, school representatives, a  Bellingham official and more.

The main purpose of the committee will be to generate ideas and hear feedback for potential re-purposing and re-populating ideas concerning the building’s potential future uses.

The meetings will start with establishing the proceedings for future meetings, in order to create an effective schedule once the time starts to tick down.

Ultimately the committee will serve as advisement to the superintendent, who will be in contact with the group as a way to make an informed decision.

The initial six meetings will culminate with a presentation to the superintendent, for consideration with the rest of various district staff.

Maintenance and security will be discussed in terms of keeping the building maintained, since it is predicted that the building will take a while before it is properly renovated.