Court ‘designed, painted by kids’
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ELKINS -- The newly painted basketball court in Elkins City Park was, as a local art teacher puts it, "designed by kids, painted by kids, for kids."
Tom Tesar, director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Elkins, said the project was proposed to him by Elkins Middle School art teacher Tessa Garver-Daniels.
"She approached me with the idea to do it," Tesar told The Inter-Mountain. "She had an art class. It's getting more and more popular to decorate basketball courts and do those outdoor art projects, so her class looked at some of those projects and then designed their own.
"Each student made a draft of their ideal basketball court art project, and Tessa said, 'These are really good ideas. We should make it happen in real life.' So she did.
"She volunteered all her labor," Tesar said. "She came in on weekends and brought her kids with her. We love to see the community involvement."
Garver-Daniels told The Inter-Mountain the idea for the project came from one of her students being a frequent player on the City Park court.
"I had a student who would go past my house every day to go to the basketball court," she said. "I realized that the court needed a little TLC.
"Each of my students designed what they wanted to see on the court. (The Elkins nonprofit organization) Our Town came to talk to the art teachers, and I told them, 'I have this project.' They said, 'That sounds awesome. What can we do?' And I said, 'Well, I can't fund it. I can't pay for everything.'
"They said they could fund it up to a certain point, so I said let's make this happen," Garver-Daniels said.
"We bought the materials. I got a textured paint that was special for basketball courts. Then I got colored paints to go on top of the textured paints. I got the paints from Sherwin Williams, and they gave us a great discount.
"We had to modify the design a little bit. We really didn't have the money to paint the entire court, so we took the main pieces of the design and put it together."
Garver-Daniels said the youngsters who helped her with the project each put their own touches on it.
"I was originally going to have my art class paint it, but it kept raining in the spring, and then it was hard to organize it once we were out of school," she said. "So I ended up having some kids from the neighborhood, some kids that I knew were into art. So in the end it was two ninth-graders, one eighth-grader, one sixth-grader and two fifth-graders.
"I showed them the design, and the kids would choose what shape they wanted to do, what color they wanted to do, and they would just paint and chat. When they were done, they just left," she said with a laugh.
"What was really awesome about it, you get to know your community when you're out doing these sorts of things. So I was stopped by parents of my students, and they told me their stories about playing on the basketball court when they were younger. Grandparents stopped to thank me. It was really lovely."
Garver-Daniels and her students painted the court in August, over a period of weeks.
"It was a long process," she said. "It took a little time to let it adhere to the asphalt. If it rained, I had to wait for the court to dry off before starting in again. All in all, I would say it took me over 20 hours of work, off and on. But my helpers really did help out."
She praised the nonprofit group Our Town for funding the project.
"Our Town paid for the paint completely, which was great. I also got extra paint, because when you do a project like this, you cannot just leave it and act like it's going to be fine forever. So we got extra paint to go over it next year and keep it fresh," she said.
"I really wanted to encourage kids to invest in the community, for them to see something that somebody their age made, and to enjoy it. It was designed by kids, painted by kids, for kids."