By KALIN KROHE
Panhandle Post
On June 8, the community of Chadron became more colorful than it already is. The “Paint the Town Chadron” project began painting alley murals behind downtown Chadron businesses.
The first Chadron alleyway business that got involved was Bloom. Chadron Chamber of Commerce Director Gabby Michna said those involved are working hard right now developing murals.
“We completed our first mural with the help of quite a few of our community kiddos. We had about 50 kids come out on a Saturday and they helped us cover the complete bottom of the mural in less than two hours. We celebrated together and had some pizza compliments of Bloom,” Michna said.
The alleyway murals are being grown throughout the community of Chadron. Michna said the murals will add some color, culture, ownership, as well as help kids and community members to leave their mark on the Chadron community.
“Hopefully this brings in not only local people that really maybe haven’t spent time in and about the community especially downtown, but also some tourists we can bring into the community and generate some organic dollars for our membership and of course for Dawes County,” Michna added.
“Paint the Town Chadron” came about with a Facebook post.
“I mentioned this being something that was personally a dream for me. Cory Brennan over at Bloom offered her wall and monetary donations. The more I talked about it the more I started hearing that this idea is something that has been this undercover idea floating around town for quite awhile and nobody has spearheaded it,” said Michna.
She said she saw that there was a lot of support in the community to make this happen, and created a steering committee to move forward. They brought in different students through the public schools, artists, and businesses.
The committee then decided what designs they wanted to create, and where they wanted to paint them.
Michna said a question they asked in the committee was, “How can we create something that is really easy to unify people that otherwise wouldn’t be working together?”
The next mural is planned for this Saturday, June 22. It will be on the west side of the Main Street alleyway between 2nd and 3rd Street behind Service Barber Shop. Saturday is kids day from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. It’s open to all kids, and families.
You can find more information by searching for “Paint the Town Chadron” on Facebook.