Anaheim Community Joins to Create Mural

During the summer, Anaheim High School’s Art Club met at City Church to paint a mural on one of their walls. On August 26th, members of the community met on the corner of Broadway and Citron to celebrate the ribbon cutting.
The students dedicated their time to create a mural that represented the city of Anaheim. “…I didn’t see a lot of murals in the city, and I thought that it was important…to have a mural that spread a message in order to…inspire others,” one of the painters, Cindy Villaseñor, said. The students added elements to the piece that the community wanted: clouds were added to the top because of a community members’ recommendation. “You know what? It should feel like above all those galaxies is heaven,” said Andrea Evington, a member of City Church.
Juan Alvarez, Anaheim’s cultural heritage commissioner, attended a community meeting at City Church. Pastor Kyle asked Alvarez to help find people from the community to paint the mural. This led to Lizzette Barrios-Gracián, teacher and adviser at AHS, and the art club students to begin their work on the mural.
Pastor Kyle began the ceremony to present the mural to the community. All the painters and the principal of Anaheim High School, Robert Saldivar, received a plaque from City Church for their hard work during the summer on the mural. The ribbon was then cut which brought a closing to the event. Juan Alvarez hopes that this will be the beginning of many opportunities for young people getting opportunities from the community to express themselves through art in our city.