Waterbury Community Mural Fully Funded!

June 20, 2023  ·   WAARC Public Art Team

We are thrilled to announce that we reached our fundraising goal of $10,000 for the Waterbury Community Mural project! The $10,000 we raised qualifies WAARC to receive an additional $20,000 Better Places grant from the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development (VDHCD). Our dream of a community mural is about to become a reality thanks to the hard work of the many WAARC volunteers listed below.

Public Art Team: Chiyomi McKibbin, MK Monley, Faith Bieler, Rachel Cadwallader-Staub, Nicole Grenier

Selection Committee: Nicole Grenier, Chiyomi McKibbin, Maroni Minter, MK Monley, Ashley Laporte, Tessa Yip

Marketing and Events Committee: Faith Bieler, Rachel Cadwallader-Staub, Caitlin Frauton, Brenda Hartshorn, Alayna Howard, Jo-Anne Smith, Emily Wood 

Steering Committee: Mal Culbertson, Life LeGeros, Ashley Laporte, Erin Hurley, Maroni Minter, Marlena Tucker-Fishman, Dan Levy

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to Nicole and John Grenier, owners of Stowe Street Cafe, who offered their building as a site for the mural. For two years, our Public Art Team has been working to find a location where we could realize our goal of uplifting the voices of BIPOC artists with public art. Nicole and John’s generosity made it possible to turn this goal into action.

We are looking forward to working with Raphaella (Raph) Brice in August to paint “Madonna’s Earth”. We will have a community sign-up for those interested in helping to paint this summer and we will host a celebratory event when the mural is installed in early September. 

We would like to thank everyone who has supported this project! Over 150 people, near and far, contributed to the $10,000 fundraising effort and more than 30 area businesses contributed raffle items that raised over $1,000 toward that goal. Our largest donor, The Alchemist, has been a key supporter from the beginning. A list of contributing patrons and businesses can be found below and on our Patronicity page.

We encourage everyone interested in the mural project to read our previous blog posts and to follow the links below to learn about Raph’s background and design in their own words. 

Learn more about Raph: https://raphdraws.com/ 

Learn more about the design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIXNiz-CQGg&ab_channel=WaterburyAreaAntiRacismCoalition 

To our supporters and donors near and far, anonymous and named, collective and individual - we did it! Thank you! 

List of Donor Patrons and Businesses: 

A complete list of our Patronicity donors can be found under the “Patrons” tab on our project page: https://www.patronicity.com/project/waterbury_vermont_community_mural_project#!/. 

Additionally, we’d like to thank the many area businesses that donated raffle prizes and/or funds directly to WAARC to make the mural possible and to endow our continued work on this inclusive community art project! 

The Alchemist, After Glow on Main St. Salon, Artisan Coffee & Tea, Balance Massage Center, Ben & Jerry’s, Block House Pottery Studio, Bohemian Bakery, Cabot Cheese, Capital Grounds, Cold Hollow Cider Mill, Crossroads Beverage & Deli, Evergreen Gardens, Green Envy VT, Green Mountain Dry Goods, Green Mountain Inn, Lake Champlain Chocolates, Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Mad River Glass Gallery, Red Hen Baking, Roots & Tides Massage, Sarduccis's, Sally Kendall Massage, Stowe Cider, Stowe Street Cafe, Sunflower Natural Market, Taste Place, The Goose Chase Designs, Three Mountain Cafe, Three Penny Taproom, Toast & Eggs, Wild Sings the Bird Apothecary, Woodbury Mountain Toys, and Zen Barn.