By Julia Oudiz
Online Features Editor
Mira Costa students and South Bay residents painted artwork last week to restore and redecorate the Los Angeles County Animal Shelters.
Photos: Residents paint in 24 hour Paintathon to help LA County animal shelters
El Segundo’s Portraits of Hope, a non-profit organization, designed a 24-hour “Paintathon” at the El Segundo Plaza on Mar. 4, in order to benefit The Animal Shelters Revitalization Initiative, a new project created in order to make the Los Angeles County Animal Shelters more appealing to people to adopt pets. This project was started by Portraits of Hope founders, Ed and Bernie Massey, and approved by California State Senator, Sheila Kuehl.
Link: Learn more about Portraits of Hope
“The paintings can make the animal shelter pretty, and a happy place for adopting a pet, so that more people would want to go to that area,” Portraits of Hope club president Yua Watanabe said. “[It] lures more people in with the beautiful paintings.”
Forty-three students from Mira Costa’s Portraits of Hope club signed up for the Paintathon. According to Watanabe, the volunteer painters had an option to fill in pre-traced designs of smaller animals or paint decorative flowers and circles on larger posters. The paintings will be placed near adoption centers in LA area shelters.
Link: Learn more about the Mira Costa Portraits of Hope Club
“The smaller animals you could do more by yourself while the bigger ones you could do in a group,” painter Nicole Matsumoto said. “It gives more attention towards animal shelters and it just brightens up the mood because the shelters are so sad.”
There were three different buildings set up for the Paintathon. One room was dedicated to painting the smaller animal designs, the other larger paintings were done in a separate room across the street, and a separate building was set up for drying the paintings when they were finished.
“I went to the smaller ones because it was the first one that I saw and it had these vibrant letters that said 24-hour Paintathon,” Costa junior Quin Nguyen said. “It was just a really lively atmosphere with people coming in and out even thought it was really late at night.”
There was a wide range of age groups painting that day, from three-year-olds to seniors, Watanabe said. Since the Paintathon lasted 24 hours, most of the restaurants in the El Segundo Plaza offered a 15% discount on food for participants in the Paintathon. In addition, Portraits of Hope provided people with water bottles.
“It was great to see all age ranges come out and participate in a community event that will benefit animals,” sophomore Ally Kennedy said.
During the Paintathon, Mira Costa band volunteer members provided music for the painters. In addition, Portraits of Hope provided live music from artists, such as Mark Portis, Ashley Krouse, Linda Miya.
“It was all volunteer so we didn’t pay [the musicians] and they just decided to come and play for us,” Watanabe said. “From [about] 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., so many people played their instruments. It was all live music and it was really great.”
The Mira Costa Portraits of Hope club will be in communication with Ed and Bernie Massey to stay updated with the next projects. Currently, the club is trying to help put the paintings up at various animal shelters with Portraits of Hope.
“The community was brought together and everyone was having a good time, especially because it was for a good cause,” Watanabe said. “It was just fun overall and [I] felt good participating in it.”
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