Students and families arriving at the Beachmont Veterans Memorial School could soon be greeted by a colorful new message reminding everyone who walks through the doors that they belong.
Beachmont Principal Chris Freisen and School Psychologist Amanda Lockerbie presented plans for a new “You Are Loved” mural at the Aug. 18 Revere School Committee meeting. The proposed mural would transform a section of the school’s exterior near the Everard Street entrance into a highly visible piece of public art designed to celebrate the cultures, languages, and families that make up the Beachmont community.
A $4,000 Revere Local Cultural Council grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council supports the project. Freisen credited Lockerbie with spearheading the grant application after approaching him last fall with the idea of finding a creative way to beautify the school.
“We all know that schools are more than places that you just go and learn,” Lockerbie told the committee. “They are communities.”
She said the mural would provide a tangible way to make the district’s values of inclusion, equity, and cultural pride visible to students, families, and the surrounding neighborhood.
The Beachmont project would be part of artist Alex Cook’s “You Are Loved” Mural Project. Founded in 2013, the initiative partners with schools and community organizations to create murals through collaborative painting events. Cook, a Boston-based artist, has completed more than 240 murals across the United States and abroad.
Lockerbie said Cook has extensive experience working with schools and community organizations, with murals located throughout Massachusetts and beyond.
The message behind the artwork is deliberately simple but powerful: You Are Loved. At Beachmont, however, that message could be expressed in several languages.
School officials are considering incorporating Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic into the mural to reflect languages spoken by Beachmont students and families. Italian is also being considered as a nod to the Beachmont neighborhood's history. The presentation showed the phrase in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and Italian: “You Are Loved,” “Eres Amado,” “Você é Amado,” “أنت محبوب” and “Sei Amato.”
“Representation matters,” Lockerbie said. “We want to incorporate ‘You Are Loved’ in the languages that our families and students speak."
According to the presentation, the mural is intended to send a visible message of belonging, safety, and welcome while affirming students and families from a wide range of cultures, languages, and backgrounds. School officials also hope the artwork will help reinforce that every student and family is valued while creating a shared symbol that brings the community together.
Just as important as the finished product will be the process of creating it.
Rather than simply hiring an artist to paint the wall, Beachmont hopes to involve students directly in the project. Students could participate during art classes or through another schoolwide painting opportunity.
Before the painting begins, the brick surface will be prepared and primed. Cook would then sketch the design onto the wall, essentially creating what officials described as a giant coloring book.
On painting day, students and other participants would receive brushes, sponges, and cups of premixed paint and be assigned portions of the design. Cook would complete the final details and clean up the lines once the community painting portion is finished.
Lockerbie said Cook’s experience working directly with children and adults was an important part of choosing him for the project.
“It’s not just hiring a muralist to do the job,” she said, explaining that Cook is organized and intentional about making participants part of the artistic process. Students would be assigned sections of the mural to paint, making the experience as important as the finished artwork.
Freisen said the school originally considered completing the mural during the summer and surprising students when they returned for the new school year. However, conversations with Cook led school officials to see an opportunity to make students active participants in its creation.
“It should be a really hands-on project,” Freisen said.
The project would also continue efforts to use student-created art to brighten Beachmont. Freisen recalled an earlier project in which Revere High School students helped create murals inside the building, an effort he said was well received by students.
If plans remain on schedule, Freisen said the Beachmont mural could begin in October.
Once finished, the mural will serve a purpose beyond simply brightening the Beachmont entrance. For the students who help paint it—and the generations of children and families who will walk past it afterward—the hope is that four simple words will serve as a permanent reminder of what the Beachmont community strives to represent:
You are loved.