Emma Roulette brought Abraham Lincoln and George Washington to life on the walls of Chester Shell Elementary School on Saturday.
She dipped the tip of her paintbrush in brown paint and carefully shaped Lincoln’s eyes, which will look out at elementary school students for years to come.
The 17-year-old biology freshman was one of about 1,200 volunteers who spruced up the school Friday through Sunday as a part of Project Makeover. Roulette contributed to the educational mural to help beautify the school, which is located in a low-income area of Hawthorne.
Project Makeover, an organization inspired by ABC’s popular show, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” fixed up Chester Shell Elementary School this year with a series of murals, a vegetable garden, a new science lab and a quarter-mile fitness trail.
The project was funded with $10,000 the organization raised in the last year through fundraisers and donations from businesses, said Megan Iseman, Project Makeover executive director.
She said the school was one of four schools considered for a makeover because a majority of the students are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch.
One goal of the project was to increase students’ interest in science. Chester Shell principal Denise Schultz said the school has had some of the district’s worst FCAT science scores in past years.
“It’s kind of always been a dream since I came out here to have a science area that would be exciting and stimulating and get kids interested in the sciences,” she said.
This weekend, her dream came true. The new science lab has beakers and test tubes, new lab tables and stools, models of human organs and a full-size skeleton.
Hawthorne Mayor Matthew Surrency helped create a vegetable garden where students will be able to learn about plants in an interactive environment. He said he was impressed by the UF students who volunteered.
“It’s humbling to see that people would do that for your community,” Surrency said.
Lesly Parra, an 18-year-old advertising freshman, and Sasha Saigol, a 19-year-old marketing freshman, perfect a mural in a Chester Shell Elementary School hallway Saturday. They volunteered their time as a part of Project Makeover, an organization that fixes up one Alachua County school each year.
