‘Before I Die’ community art project comes to Eustis Saturday

Eustis visitors will be able to lay bare their most fervent wishes Saturday and share their bucket-list dreams on a 76-foot-long, 8-foot-wide wall erected downtown.

“Before I Die” walls are public art projects where people use chalk to write the wishes — lighthearted or heavy — they hope to fulfill before they die.

A wall will debut in the Lake County city during the fourth annual Amazing Race for Charity event and will remain in place for half a year.

Making appearances in more than 70 countries, the chalkboards have enticed people to write a few words as flashes for motivation, contemplation of the “big question” or serve as a prompt for powerful moments.

“It’s a big, open bucket list,” said Gloria SavannahAustin, a certified “life-cycle celebrant” who celebrates the lives of the deceased at funerals and memorial services. “People come in and put their hopes, dreams and wishes on with chalk.”

The wall will be at Fountain Green Park, where Savannah-Austin has already been exposed to the desires of many people reflected on a miniature “Before I Die” wall that was put up during recent downtown events.

An Army veteran wept and wrote that he wished to conquer his shell shock.

An 18-year-old who deploys with the military this summer wrote that she wants to “save a life.”

Others scrawled that they long to “wrestle an alligator,” “win American Idol” or the hit a lottery jackpot.

“Before I Die” walls — started in 2011 by a local New Orleans artist who painted the words on an abandoned house — have featured fun and emotional testimonies, including a desire to become the U.S. president, beat cancer or see sons reunited.

Tim Totten, the race director for the Amazing Race Charity and an expert on the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, said he wants to visit to the Wright-designed Imperial Hotel in Tokyo before he dies.

Alternately, he wants to be able to sing in tune.

The Amazing Race is a 5-mile long trek throughout the city dotted with 23 stops — along with 23 challenges — to be undertaken by the participants and their running partners.

Many challenges are secret until the day of the race, but one involves creating drawings that will be tacked onto the other side of the 40 plywood sheets — donated by a local building-supply company — that make the “Before I Die” wall.

“It’s a true community art project,” Savannah-Austin said.

Totten expects to raise $34,000 through the race to