by Katie Vasquez
Every Friday for almost six months, four girls from The Mary Louis Academy have been volunteering after school, by sketching flowers or painting a stained glass window.
“I love to paint. I think I find it very therapeutic,” said The Mary Louis Academy sophomore, Ashley Johnson.
“I like to paint so in my free time, I usually like to sketch in my book,” said The Mary Louis Academy sophomore, Christina Castro, “and when I was younger, I used to paint a lot.
Their masterpiece is a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe, painted on the walls of Blessed Sacrament Catholic academy.
The assistant principal of the Cypress Hills school, Rocio Lijo was the one who had the idea, hoping it would brighten up the academy’s hallways.
“I was like, okay, you see this one? we can paint something here, you have ideas and they’re like, wait a minute, did you say that? you mean that we really had to paint the walls and. yes, go ahead,” said Lijo.
Rocio approached TMLA with the project and these four girls volunteered, hoping to earn their 15 service hours required for sophomores by the Queens high school by the end of the school year.
But Alexandra Dimitovici says by the second Friday, painting the mural became more than a service project.
“When you get recognition and when you get people saying that you did a good job, like it makes you realize that you can actually make a difference. so it makes you want to go,” said Dimitovici.
Now the girls are looking to take their art to the other bare walls of Blessed Sacrament.
“We haven’t started with the other side of the building or the lower grades or the upper grades,” said Dimitovici “but hopefully we can do other schools as well. We’ve been talking about it and honestly, just really great to help Mrs. Lijo and the kids”
Continuing their collaboration, and even expanding it.
“I think I’m very lucky they actually already asked, can we come back next year? So hopefully I get some new girls next year, plus these girls that I have already,” said Lijo.