“Cool” was the word most often used by children and their parents as they made an impression of their hand with paint on a crosswalk outside the Waukegan Public Library over the weekend.
“It was cool,” Joslyn Castro, a middle school student, said. “It was fun.“
“It’s cool. She can tell her own children this was part of my childhood one day,” added Chantel Tiedge, Joslyn’s aunt. “It was a great opportunity for these kids to make a memory.”
“It was pretty cool,” said Dennis Sinsun, whose family arrived in Waukegan in the 1920s. “Maybe my grandchildren will see it.”
Scores of families participating in Community Paint Day put their handprints on crosswalk murals Saturday at the Corner of County and Clayton streets in downtown Waukegan as part of the city’s crosswalk mural project.
David Motley, the city’s director of communications, said Community Paint Day was an effort to get people involved in the plan to have murals painted in many of the downtown crosswalks as part of the first phase of the state’s Energy Transition grant program.
“This will create symmetry in the area between the Waukegan Public Library, Nightshade and Dark’s, the Raw Juice Bar and the Genesee Theatre,” Motley said. “All four crosswalks have a water wave as a nautical theme as a nod to our lakefront.”
Already calling artists to be commissioned to paint murals on crosswalks on much of Genesee Street, Motley said he hopes the initial effort will help draw painters to join the program.
Niya Simone, the public relations specialist with the city, played a managerial role in organizing Paint Day. She said along with aiding the effort to hire artists to paint murals, it will bring residents together.
“We wanted to make people aware and do something that could energize the community,” she said. “It gives community members an opportunity to be part of this.”
After Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 Board of Education member Adriana Gonzalez added her handprint to the mural, she went to work with city employees and other volunteers painting the background on another of the four crosswalks.
“This is a good way for people to do something for Waukegan,” Gonzalez said. “This will help show people Waukegan is a safe place, and a way to make it look pretty.”
Waukegan natives George Vazquez and Elizabeth Garcia came with their four children as all six of them added their handprints to the crosswalk mural. He said it gave them all a sense of belonging.
“It’s nice to be part of something bigger than you,” Vazquez said. “Some day, they can bring their children and say this is what I did as a small child with your grandparents.”
