Senior Allison Weissman recently added to the artwork at Warren Hills with a “Mural for Morale” project created for a Gold Award in Girl Scouts.

The Gold Award is a prestigious rank earned by Girl Scouts who are willing to go above and beyond for their community.

Gold Award projects require a minimum of 80 community service hours and must have a permanent and positive impact on the community.

“It’s basically the highest award you can earn as a Girl Scout, it’s the equivalent to Eagle Scout,” said Weissman.  “It’s a take-action plan, as opposed to a community service plan. It encourages you to lead something that is sustainable and lasting.”

Weissman said she wanted to spread the message of community at Warren Hills and came up with the idea to create the mural as a collection of symbols signifying unity among clubs and sports. She then reached out to the school’s club advisors and athletic coaches to request the symbol for their respective programs.

“I’ve always liked art, and I wanted to incorporate that somehow. The Gold Award has to be based on a problem, so my idea was to take all the clubs and sports to unite them as one,” she said. “Everything that the students, advisors, teachers, and coaches are doing at Warren Hills is really important, so I tried to bring that all together with my project.”

Weissman said although the project was ultimately successful, she did initially have some difficulty in meeting the “permanency” criteria.

“I had planned to paint my mural on the wall of the school, so when I found out that I would not be able to due to maintenance reasons, I was a little nervous, as I had already gone through the approval process with the Girl Scout Council,” she said.

Weissman credits Warren Hills Art teacher Kimberly Roost with providing a permanent solution to the issue when she suggested making the mural out of 30” by 30” panels to create one large piece.

“In a way, this [Roost’s help] only furthered the message of my project, as I intended it to be something to unite the school, to make all the diverse groups intermingle with one another,”  Weissman said.

Weissman created the mural in whole, but said she did have to design some of the individual images herself, as some gave her the artistic freedom to.  She pulled inspiration for various sources to get a better idea of what each group stood for.

“I ended up designing the Key Club, Student Council, Gay Straight Alliance, Human Rights and Debate logos,” she said, “but my favorite is probably the Key Club logo.”

Weissman aimed to provide a permanent piece of art that the Warren Hills community could marvel at.

“Without the fabulous students and teachers within the Warren Hills community, my project would never have been able to take shape,” she said.  “It is because of them that and all the great things they accomplish each day that make our school have something to be represented.”