After attending our last community meeting for IA Scholars, I decided to volunteer to help design a mural for the Columbus Global Academy on December 1st. This event falls under the category of a service event as painting a mural benefits the community. This was my first time being involved in the mural making process and it was not what I had expected. I worked with two other IA scholars students to come up with a design that fit best with the theme of the school. After hearing that the school was designed to help refugee and immigrant students transition to life in America, one of the artists decided to incorporate folktales from various countries (predominantly the countries that the CGA students come from). We all came up with separate designs and then met up to create a combination of our visions. One of the artists created a digital version of our design and we used this to project on the wall for the teams of IA scholars to work from.

When we had arrived at the school I was surprised at how many people were willing to give up their Saturday to work on this mural. It was not only my first time working in a mural, but my first time being in a leadership position where I had to direct people to do different jobs. Everyone I worked with was very cooperative and it really opened my eyes to the type of people that are in IA. The work was daunting and painting a mural from start to finish in 12 hours took a lot of coordination as a team and communication skills. I personally believe that this event was one of the more important things that I have gotten a chance to be a part of not only during my time in college, but throughout my life as I got the opportunity to actually help a group of people. During that afternoon Jeremy (the director of CRIS) spoke to us about how they had primed the walls the day before. He explained in a half joking manner that the students of CGA had been excited about getting the primed walls themselves and that they had no idea that they would soon have a mural. Even hearing that made me realize how important the event was not only to the school, but to the kids that attend it. I think that putting a vibrant and meaningful painting in the middle of the school will mean a lot to the students and hopefully it will make the students of CGA feel more at home in this unfamiliar country that they have found themselves in.

IA scholars is about creating a community and making people from many different social and cultural backgrounds feel like they belong. I think that this event was exemplary of that goal and if I had the opportunity to participate in something similar I would accept, even if at the end of the day I would be tired, sweaty and covered from head to toe in paint.