The Boys & Girls Club in Nashua is under construction. Advancement Director Meghan Fitzgerald said the building was built in 1974 and hasn’t seen much modernization since then. In recent years, the club has adapted to meet different needs following the pandemic, including better mental health services, early childhood care and academic support.
The $10 million campaign will expand the club’s kitchen and create a separate entrance for family services. Another priority is making the space more homely for the 13,000 children it serves each year, Fitzgerald said.
“We call it the Vibrancy Initiative. So we’re taking our building, which is 90 percent painted almond, and making it a homey place for the kids,” she said. “We really want this to be a place that the kids love to come to, that they feel comfortable in, that feels more like a home than an institutional environment.”
Director of Arts and Culture Christian Londoño is the mastermind behind the art. He is collaborating with artists from Honduras and Colombia to create three large-scale murals during a week-long mural festival, including Daniel Correa Osorio, Sepc, Edgar ZelayaAnd Jorge Gallo.
Originally from Colombia, Londoño was a member of the Nashua Boys & Girls Cub as a child. He said art was a way for him to express himself when he hadn’t yet learned English. Now that he’s on staff, he says he enjoys working with students and seeing how art can inspire them.
Mural artists began work Monday on three large-scale murals that are part of the outdoor playground, pool and future cafeteria. For inspiration for the poolside mural, Londoño said they used a technique he learned while backpacking through Latin America. It’s called “scribble” and allows children to draw on the wall, which then becomes the grid for the large-scale murals.
“It’s nice to see the kids get so involved in projects like this,” he said. “A lot of good things are going to happen to the club. So I thought, okay, one cool thing that could happen to the club is maybe to add some life to the walls and do some art here.”
