It is an impressive sight to see in the student parking lot at West Jordan High School.

On this episode of the Supercast, find out how a Paint & Park project is raising money for senior class activities throughout the school year. It’s a project where some students were able to paint and personalize their parking stalls in creative works of art you simply have to see to believe.

Audio Transcription

Katie:
It was very intimidating. I was not used to painting something this big. I've never done it before.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, doing it at scale is a little bit more difficult, I would guess.

Katie:
Yeah, 100 percent.

James Myers:
What's awesome about this specific fundraiser is that we're going to be using all the funds specifically for this fundraiser, for the senior class.

[Music]

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It is an impressive sight to see in the student parking lot at West Jordan High School. On this episode of the Supercast, find out how a paint and park project is raising money for senior class activities throughout the school year. It's a project where some students were able to paint and personalize their parking stalls in creative works of art you simply have to see to believe.

[Music]

Anthony Godfrey:
We are here at West Jordan High School with one of the student government advisors. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how these parking spots came to be.

James Myers:
Alright, so my name is James Myers. I've been an educator here at West Jordan High School for almost nine years. Student government for the last five and with the senior painting and park, this idea, it's been about half a year in the making. So what had happened was that Principal Hutch, over winter break, he had shown me this picture of some kids that have painted their parking spots. And for charity season, one of the activities that we do is that we actually will sell parking spots to the students and they get to have that spot for the rest of the year. And so Principal Hutch sent me this picture of some students that have painted their parking spot and said, "Hey, wouldn't this be cool if we did this for our students?"

Anthony Godfrey:
So these were pictures from another school?

James Myers:
Yeah, from another school.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

James Myers:
That got me thinking, because you can’t really do that during the winter because you’ve the the snow and the ice against you.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sure.

James Myers:
What if we figured out a way to actually take advantage of the summer and actually do this during the summer? And so I started doing some research, looking around, seeing what other schools were doing. And it really, really picked up, I guess, in May. And then over the summer, I was just working on getting the designs from the students, seeing who all was interested. We started off with 47 spots over here. It was going to be 48, but we didn't take into account that light post over there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Darn light post.

James Myers:
Oh, I know.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you call it the senior paint and park?

James Myers:
Yeah, the senior paint and park.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's better than park and wait by a long shot.

James Myers:
Oh, it definitely is. And it's much nicer to look at, too.

Anthony Godfrey:
So you decided there were 47 spots available. And how did you decide who was going to be able to access these particular spots?

James Myers:
That was a little difficult to figure out at first. But in the end, what we decided was that we sent out a mass email, multiple emails , out to the seniors and also sent out on social media to see who was interested. We had a form that they could fill out and such. And in the end, we said, OK, you need to send a confirmation saying that you're indeed interested in order to get one of these 47 spots. And you also have to submit your design for approval or to receive feedback, at least. And so of the first 47 students that both sent in their confirmation and their design so that we could actually start to review it and make sure that it would meet our standards. Once they were able to do that, they were on the list. And we quickly got our 47. And I think we ended up still having like another 40 that we're still contacting wanting to be involved.

Anthony Godfrey:
So did you take the first 47 or was it based on the designs or how exactly did you decide?

James Myers:
The first 47.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

James Myers:
These students, they're smart. They have a pretty good idea of what's going to get approved and what would instantly get rejected.

Anthony Godfrey:
Were there any duplicate designs or did everyone have their own idea?

James Myers:
We had two. We had two. Apparently Red Bull is very popular.

Anthony Godfrey:
It gives you wings, I hear.

James Myers:
I have heard that as well. And I reached out to them and I went, hey, you know you're doing the same design. And they went, yeah, we both know.

Anthony Godfrey:
So we have two Red Bull designs out there.

James Myers:
We have two Red Bull designs out there.

Anthony Godfrey:
Have the people at Red Bull been contacted? They ought to be sending you a swag of some kind.

James Myers:
I know. That would be amazing.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. That's the next step. That's the next step in this. See what you can raise for charity. What's being done with the funds that you raise? How are you going to use those?

James Myers:
What's awesome about this specific fundraiser is that we're going to be using all the funds specifically for this fundraiser for the senior class. So the seniors that paint it, they will get to reap the rewards of their actions. So we're going to make sure to use it for like the senior dinner dance, senior sunset, senior sunrise, and other activities like that that we love to put on for our seniors.

Anthony Godfrey:
What do you think this has meant to the students to get to personalize a spot during their senior year?

James Myers:
Oh, for one, it was just exciting to see them all before the school year started and just seeing them be so excited for this, their last year of high school. And they were just talking and hanging out and having so much fun. We had music going on and everything. And just being able to leave a part of themselves out here for everyone to see, I think that was just something really special. And it was just wonderful to be a part of it.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's awesome. Well, I can't wait to see them in person. Photos and the videos are what drew me here because they just, it looks fantastic.

James Myers:
Yeah. We were able to get some awesome drone footage from one of the parents of one of the students. He was also a resource officer over here, Officer Gray. So Detective Gray, he was actually the one that got all that footage of the drone.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, cool. I do hear it's caused some problems though, because other schools are now getting pressure to do the same thing because you guys are setting a trend. And other principals are saying, hey, now everyone wants us to do it as well. So you may see this spread to other schools next year.

James Myers:
I would be, I'm looking forward to it because there's just so many creative ideas out there and I want to see them painted. And I just hope that they all share their pictures as well.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's exciting. Now, from a technical standpoint, tell me what type of paint you use because when I first saw this, I thought, well, the first rain, we're going to be in trouble. So does the paint come off eventually or are these seniors now, they'll be able to come back when their children attend West Jordan High and park in their spot?

James Myers:
Oh, if that's the case, we're going to be running out of parking space.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yes. Yes.

James Myers:
So I went to Home Depot to get our paint. Got the cheapest stuff that they had. I mean, it was still like twenty twenty-five dollars a gallon of paint.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

James Myers:
Yeah. Except for the white paint. I was able to get the five-gallon buckets of that. So, you know, bulk paint a little bit cheaper there. We probably went through 90 gallons of this house paint. So it's house interior paint. It is washable when it's wet and you can wipe it clean. OK, at least that's what it says on the can. And so we're hoping that it will last, you know, through most of the school year. I am really interested to see what will happen come winter once all the elements and you got the rock salt and the ice scraping and everything.

Anthony Godfrey:
Sure.

James Myers:
And the plan, I guess, for next year, we're going to have to do some testing because, you know, this is the first time that we're trying this out here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

James Myers:
With our climate would be to get some pressure washers out here to see just how effective that would be for removing it if we need to put on another base coat.

Anthony Godfrey:
But yeah, you can always paint over it.

James Myers:
Yeah, we can always paint over it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. OK. Well, it's really exciting. It's a creative and fun way for people to feel a greater connection to their school and to raise m...