A new look for the YMCA
CRANBERRY TWP — Along with a new name, the day care at the Rose E. Schneider Family YMCA got a whole new look thanks to some art students from Seneca Valley.
About a dozen art students from Seneca Valley Senior High School painted a large mural on the walls of the Kidquarium at the YMCA, 2001 Ehrman Road.
The mural depicts an ocean aquarium scene with colorful, cartoonlike sea creatures, ocean waves and currents.
“It's a great way to get the kids to serve in the community,” said Jason Shorr, secondary school art teacher at Seneca Valley.
The Kidquarium is a day care center available for YMCA members while they use the facility, said Karen Guise, senior program director for the Rose E. Schneider Family YMCA. The service is available for children from ages six weeks to seven years old for up to two hours a day.
After the Kidquarium was renamed last year — it used to be called the Play Place — the YMCA wanted to revamp the room to fit the new theme, Guise said.
Carrie Ohorodnyk, executive director of the YMCA, contacted Seneca Valley about having art students paint the room, and the district was happy to oblige.Secondary art teachers Shorr and Jason Woolslare selected students from their AP Studio Art and Senior Career Art classes to participate. They started painting the room earlier in the winter and finished Friday.“We've been looking at ways to get Seneca Valley art in the community more,” Shorr said. “This is a step toward that.”Senior Sarah Kosakowski designed the cartoon sea creatures that were projected and traced onto the walls.To get inspiration, Sarah said she polled her friends and teachers about what animals they thought of as being in an aquarium. A sea turtle, squid, octopus and several varieties of fish made the final cut.“I want to become an animator, so I focus on cartoony things,” she said.As her classmates filled in the tracings with paint, the pictures came to life with vibrant colors. It turned out better than she had imagined, Sarah said.“Kids need color and creativity,” she said.
Many of the students participating have taken most of the art classes at Seneca Valley, so painting a mural was a new opportunity, Woolslare said.“It's nice to do something different,” said Bailee Tabag, a senior.While the mural was an ungraded project, it gave the students an experience they'd never had before and a chance to leave their mark on a facility that many of the students grew up in, Woolslare said.“They can take pride that they have artwork in the community they live in,” Woolslare said.
