Mon Feb 13 2012
By Diane Smith
Record-Courier staff writer
The teens scattered through the halls of Happy Day School, leaving a cheerful, colorful reminder of their community service project.
The 66 teens, accompanied by 19 adult leaders, painted murals on the school walls as a community service project. The project was an activity for a youth conference sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Shirley Mars, young women’s president for the Youngstown Stake, a group of seven Mormon congregations in the area, said the service project opened a three-day youth conference.
The conference, which continues through Sunday, also includes youth rallies, a trip to Palmyra, N.Y., to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant outdoors, and sight-seeing in New York.
The participating teens, ages 14 to 18, come from churches in Rootstown, Alliance, Ashtabula, Lisbon, Youngstown, Warren and New Castle, Pa.
The theme of the conference is “Stand as a Witness.”
“We stand as a witness of Jesus Christ, and we do that by the way we live, and the way we serve,” she said.
Several years ago, she said, another group of Mormon teens painted murals around the outdoor pool at Happy Day, and Mars said the school wanted to see more murals on its walls.
“The kids really have taken this seriously,” she said. “It really means something to them.”
One long hallway mural carried the theme of an animal alphabet. Other murals had a space theme, numbers, shapes, colors, the rainforest and an underwater theme.
In the gymnasium, children painted replacements for the cardboard animal murals used in therapeutic play. The children of the school throw balls at the animals, she explained.
The school is holding its summer programs and Thursday was the outdoor carnival, which gave students the chance to enjoy the outdoors.
However, a few times, students did make an appearance in the school halls, giving the teens a chance to see who their work will benefit.
“They were just in awe,” Mars said.
The teens said they enjoyed having the chance to interact with other Mormon teens and complete the service project.
“I think it’s good to see who we’re doing it for,” said Andrew Lisonbee of Kent, who drew the underwater design that fellow teens were painting.
Megan Gibbons of Palmyra agreed.
“It was fun, knowing that we’re going to help these kids with their numbers and letters,” she said.
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