Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School celebrated a new mural at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday.
The Words of Worth artwork — a collaboration between the Pennsbury School District elementary school and Worthwhile, a nonprofit working to combat human trafficking — aims to promote the idea that every student has value, agency and a voice.
Every student, along with community members and school staff, pitched in to produce the mural. Lisa Follman, principal at Eleanor Roosevelt, said everyone joining in created a powerful feeling.
“The idea of Words of Worth, having every kid contribute to that and know what it means, I think is something that will last for many years to come,” Follman said.
Art to create a lasting impact
Tim Gibson serves as the resident artist for Worthwhile and coordinated the painting efforts at the elementary school. The whole project took about three weeks, with Gibson creating an outline for the design on the walls and school community members taking turns painting.
“A lot of parents come out, teachers, faculty,” Gibson said. “Basically a giant paint by numbers, everyone filling it in.”
This was one of the larger murals Worthwhile has tackled, according to Gibson. The artwork contained over 100 flowers.
Painting the mural allows students to put Worthwhile’s mission into practice. The organization wants to instill a feeling of self-esteem and confidence, allowing students to be the best version of themselves.
“We paired that up with the mural workshop program where instead of just being told that, they actually get to demonstrate those actions,” Gibson said.
This year, there are nine more Words of Worth pieces scheduled to go up. So far, there have been eight murals completed across four states.
Helping students understand their worth
Executive director of Worthwhile Dan Emr explained that along with supporting survivors of trafficking, the organization has heard countless stories that their exploitation started when they were a child.
“And so with Words of Worth, the focus is to help kids understand that they have worth and value, that they have agency, that they have a voice, that they are seen and they are heard,” Emr said.
In addition to community-driven murals, Worthwhile offers programming to help students foster their own sense of belonging, from kindergarten through high school.
Allegra Cressman, director of programming for the organization, said that younger children learn about listening to their inner voice and learning how to talk about anything that has happened to them. As students get older, the curriculum becomes more focused on red flags and online dangers.
“We bring the curriculum around human trafficking down to a level that kids can understand, where it’s not scary, but it’s really helpful,” Cressman said.
Human trafficking exists in Lower Bucks County, according to Cressman. In July, detectives arrested a man in Bensalem as the result of an operation designed to proactively stop trafficking.
Worthwhile wants to bring this taboo topic into the light and educate families about an undiscussed issue.
“Really we want to protect our kids, because we do know that early childhood experiences continue to make people vulnerable and more susceptible to traffickers,” Cressman said.
A ribbon cutting
Students sat on the ground at Eleanor Roosevelt, as school staff prepared to cut an orange ribbon, officially unveiling the new mural. The hallway behind now stood dotted with multicolored flowers — petals colored in various shades of red, pink and yellow.
On one of the plants’ six petals, keywords of worth were painted: seen, heard, unique, brave, enough and worthwhile.
“The building is really nice, but it needed some warmth I think,” Follman said. “This adds that love and warmth with powerful words and beautiful images.”
