Church hopes to paint more school mascot murals
CALEXICO — Mains Elementary School students were recently welcomed back to the start of another school year with a large new mural featuring their school mascot, the Trojan.
Although second-grader Bryan Vega said he kind of missed the eagle that was found in the campus’ previous mural, his grandmother Jane Lopez said its replacement is quite an addition.
“It’s a nice change,” Lopez said in Spanish.
Similar changes may be in store for additional campuses across Calexico if the volunteer group that painted the Mains mural is given permission to keep providing their free services.
The large new mural greets students as they walk onto campus, and was painted by volunteers from Christ Community Church’s Calexico campus, said Pastor Vincent Zazueta.
“We as a church believe that we need to be a church that’s out there in the community as well,” Zazueta said.
The church’s Calexico campus opened nearly a year and a half ago, and has since made it its mission to reach out to the community in as many ways as possible, similar to its El Centro campus, Zazueta said.
Already, church representatives have led the invocations that precede the start of City Council meetings here, and have reached out to the Police Department as well to establish ties.
“We just want to be a blessing not just to the schools, but the whole community,” Zazueta said.
The summer’s high temperatures partly limited the number of volunteers that assisted with the installation of the mural, but Zazueta said he expects future projects to include larger groups of volunteers.
The Calexico native said he had worked on public murals throughout the city in the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of which are still in place.
The former Mains Elementary student had even painted a Trojan-themed mural at the school in the early 1980s, but it has since been painted over, Zazueta said.
The new Trojan mural replaces a mural that had featured Mount Signal and an expanse of farmland at its center, and which was bordered by historical and symbolic figures, as well as Aztec hieroglyphs.
The previous mural, which adorned the rear of a campus building that faces Sheridan Street to the south, had fallen into poor condition on account of the Valley’s extreme weather, said Calexico Unified School District Superintendent Maria Ambriz.
A recent attempt by Mains Elementary School Principal Bertha Noriega to locate the original mural’s artist so that the art work could be touched up proved unsuccessful, Ambriz stated in an email.
Additional restoration attempts also included Noriega contacting an artist who had retouched the mural in the past, only to be told that the artist was not currently available to help restore the weathered mural.
Noriega also contacted another artist who had stated he felt uncomfortable painting over someone else’s mural, being that it was in such bad shape, Ambriz said.
In June, Noriega reconnected with the Christ Community Church’s Calexico campus volunteers who had originally approached her in January about possibly painting a mural, and agreed to their idea for a mural featuring the campus’ Trojan mascot.
“Her vision for the Mains School community is to continue to improve campus aesthetics and promote school pride,” Ambriz stated.