Paint the Pavement (PtP) is a program that promotes community building and “placemaking” through creating neighborhood art. Their primary focus is in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they support groups of neighbors to organize to create their own public mural on low-traffic residential streets.

As a Social Studies Department Co-Chair at Cretin-Derham Hall in Saint Paul, I would work with our department's historians (teachers and students alike) to use the Minnesota History Center's Oral History Project framework to go out amongst neighborhoods and collect their stories of water and community life.

Our next step would be to collaborate with the art programs at local high schools, colleges, Intermedia arts, and Twin Cities Artists to develop the oral histories into murals that reflected and brought together the shared identity and experiences of the neighborhoods.

Our historians would come together with the neighborhoods and the PtP organization to gather support, create a design, petition for approval by the City of St. Paul, and hold a “paint day” to create and celebrate their own community square that would tell the story of their relationship with water as a natural resource that has shaped our past, present, and future.

If we were to be selected as the winning entry, we would use the money for transportation, to solicit the collaboration of each of Saint Paul's 17 neighborhoods, the purchase of paint and art materials, and to branch out to surrounding cities. The benefits of street painting are multiple: awareness of water-related issues and our relationship with this natural resources; strengthening neighborhood identity, development of relationships and social networks; creation of a community gathering place; calmed traffic.

My family and I live in the Merriam Park neighborhood of Saint Paul. However, we have friends and family across the metro so we consider the Twin Cities to be our community. This idea was inspired by my students at CDH, but I foresee a broader range of residents in the Twin Cities who could participate in creating and/or viewing the street art.

My wife and I have two small children. Every day my family and I see how water issues affect our community, since we live not far from the Mississippi River and we spend a lot of time outdoors. We're concerned that our tap water remains clean and pure, and we try to take steps to conserve water so that it will be there for the next generation. Although we do some things - like using a rain barrel and trying to limit the length of our showers - we could do much more. I think that other people living in my community are like that -- they care about water issues, but they are busy and overwhelmed with the problem, so they don't always take the steps necessary to make changes in their lives.