Ida,Alonnie,Kelly Faye,Stovall,Albeno
Artist Statement By: Ida Faye, Alonnie Stovall, Kelly Albeno One time, we and a group of students went on a mini field trip around our school's neighborhood to look at the surrounding murals and storm drains. We were discussing why and how we need to stop storm drain pollution when we all witnessed a man dumping and sweeping enormous amounts of trash from the local McDonalds into a storm drain. Piles of wrappers, discarded fast foods and drinks, grease, and plastic joined all types of filth in the drain. This trash could choke ducks, fishes, turtles, birds, and hundreds of other aquatic creatures. As contaminates to these creatures' habitats, these harmful bacteria and chemicals will later cause future infections that may kill them. It was so disheartening and infuriating to see that McDonald's worker doing what we are fighting against. All this garbage is killing our aquatic animals and the Earth. The phrase “Only Rain Down the Storm Drain” came about during an April Break program for the school. We and other students painted two murals: One at our school, Central High School, and the other during the Rain Harvest Festival at Roger Williams Park. We painted these to help promote storm drain pollution awareness. Painting murals was fun and easy to do, but the project had a huge impact on how we treat the Earth. Our whole perspective on life was transformed. We think the phrase ‘’Only Rain Down the Storm Drain “ is an inclusive statement for anyone to read and recognize. We are hoping this billboard could spread a simple message, stop polluting storm drains. It is slowly killing us and the other living creatures on this beautiful planet. We're hoping this message can get out to many and people start taking accountability for how we treat the place we reside in. It's important to us that we get this message out to many people around the world. We need this message to get out and present something that needs serious attention. We believe projects like this can do just that. Projects like this can bring more public attention to the effects of storm drain polluting the way standing murals can not. Overall we think that this project is a huge opportunity for us. Students like ourselves like to take opportunities such as this one and make the most of them. We like to spread our knowledge in the best possible way. This billboard could help us be successful in expanding knowledge that we were lucky enough to obtain. “Only rain down the storm drain” could open the eyes of many and we want the chance to put out quality information for others to take in. This is something we are happy and grateful to share with you, and hopefully others in our neighboring communities.
