The mural project, organized by the Lake Placid/Wilmington Connecting Youth and Community Coalition, was unveiled on Monday, more than two years after the project’s inception. The mural features the emergency medical services Star of Life symbol in various shades of blue, with accents of red and yellow. It’s made out of 100 square tiles that were painted by 100 Lake Placid Middle-High School students.

CYC president Tina Clark said that kids were just starting on the project in early 2020 when the coronavirus started making its way through the area and in-person classes ended temporarily. When the students returned to school, she said, the project wasn’t a top priority at first. The mural tiles sat in the school’s art room for a while.

Ninth-grader Norah Galvin said she painted one of the tiles — which pictures a volleyball to represent her love of the sport — but she couldn’t remember when; sixth or seventh grade, she said. She finished her tile ahead of the pandemic, and she said she completely forgot about the mural while school went virtual. Monday was her first time seeing the completed project.

“It looks really cool,” she said. “I just thought I was doing, like, a random brick for some random thing. But now, seeing it, I really get it — why it’s so important to do these things.”

From left, Lake Placid Middle-High School art teachers Sandy Huber and Alan Robinson stand with CYC Art Director Naj Wikoff and Lake Placid Volunteer Ambulance Service President Larry Brockway in front of the ambulance service building’s new mural on Monday. (Enterprise photo — Lauren Yates)

CYC Art Director Naj Wikoff said he came up with the idea for the mural while the ambulance service building was under construction. He said he’d drive by and think that no one would know there’s an ambulance service there — he thought the building needed a marker. CYC has already supported murals at the Wilmington Youth Center, the Shipman Youth Center in Lake Placid and the Whiteface Ski Center, so Wikoff thought the ambulance service building would be the perfect location for a new one. Wikoff approached Lake Placid Volunteer Ambulance Service President Larry Brockaway, along with LPMHS art teachers Alan Robinson and Sandy Huber, about the project, and everyone was on board.

For Wikoff, it’s a big plus that the mural showcases youth art in the community. He said kids make art all the time in school, but their work often goes unseen. He hoped that the mural would make kids feel included in the landscape of the community.

“Kids are valuable, and they have a voice, and they have talents,” Wikoff said. “And this is our opportunity to showcase them, so they can feel good about being a part of this community.”

Clark said that she followed the progress of the mural throughout the years, but the gravity of the project didn’t hit her until she saw it assembled together in the foyer of the middle-high school recently. She said the sight made her cry.

“It was like, ‘Oh my god, this is really something special,'” she said.

CYC’s mission is to foster community support for kids in Lake Placid and Wilmington, and Clark said that’s the purpose of the new mural. She said she wants kids to feel like they matter.

“They’re all our kids,” she said. “That was the whole point of this thing, is that they’re our kids.”

The mural project was funded by a New York State Council for the Arts Decentralization Grant from the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts and by contributions from the Lake Placid Central School, Young Lyon Floor and Home, and CYC.