Riverside Academy art teacher Kerri Roussel’s was intrigued when she was scrolling through Facebook one night and came across a post about a project that a principal used to unite his school’s students and staff. With Riverside Academy’s 2023-2024 slogan “Together We Grow” in mind, Roussel created her own idea.

She envisioned a mural that every student and staff member contribute to, creating one work of art.

“I realized that this would be a great way for our school to showcase our united front and how working together as one we can achieve greatness,” Roussel said.

Roussel pitched the idea to principal Holly Haase, who thought it was an amazing idea. They began working on it during their teacher workshop days, showing the design to the staff and explaining how it would come together.

Roussel asked all the teachers to help put together the project by having their homeroom students design and color one-fourth of a circle in a creative way that expressed them as individuals. Roussel then took all the pieces from each homeroom, mixed them up, and used the pieces to create a full circle. The end result, now visible on the cafeteria wall, was a stunning quilt-like mural made with love by all of the Riverside Academy family.

“I am ecstatic how the mural came out,” Roussel said.

And it’s not finished yet. Roussel said she plans to create more pieces to fill up as many walls in the cafeteria as she can with help from all of the school’s students and faculty.

“I am hoping for more people to join in to complete more pieces,” Roussel said.