Art of Empowerment Mural Contest: Getting Started!

Just before Earth Hour, WWF announced the winner of the WWF and Earth Foundation Art of Empowerment school mural contest was Holy Cross Regional High School in Surrey, BC! (Check out Ms. Volentier’s Grade 12 Arts Foundation class’s winning entry video here.)

“The wall,” Todd and the winning class. ©Holy Cross Regional High School
“The wall,” Todd and the winning class. ©Holy Cross Regional High School

To kick the project off, Earth Foundation’s Todd Polich visited the school for an all-school assembly recently. Here’s what Grade 12 student Brenna Maduro had to say about Todd’s presentation:
On Tuesday, April 22nd, the Holy Cross community celebrated “Earth Day” by hosting an assembly led by their Environment Club along with the Art Foundations 12 class. This assembly was significant because this was the school’s first “Earth Day” assembly as well as the big announcement by the Art 12 class of their video entry win for the Art of Empowerment Mural Contest. During the assembly, the video entry was presented to the whole school and everyone seemed very pleased with the amount of effort the Art 12 students did for this video win as they received a huge applause after the video was presented. It was a great honour to have the actual artist behind the mural and Founder of Earth Foundation, Todd Polich, to speak to the school community about the project itself and his story. The project announcement received incredible and positive feedback from the staff and students of Holy Cross as students were very engaged by Todd’s presentation by the amount of questions he received at the end of it. The entire Holy Cross community is honoured to be given this opportunity to work with the WWF and Earth Foundation. We are very excited and we look forward to making this huge mural project a great success!
Students — and adoption stuffies! — rapt with attention. ©Holy Cross Regional High School
Students — and adoption stuffies! — rapt with attention. ©Holy Cross Regional High School

We can’t wait to follow along and see the students’ vision for a future in which humans live in harmony with nature come to life as a large-scale mural in their courtyard. Look for more blogs, photos and videos over the next eight weeks!
WWF’s Schools for a Living Planet connects educators and students of all ages to WWF’s conservation work. Join the S4LP community and learn how you can inspire your classrooms and classmates to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.