Keystone is a wonderful part of Boys & Girls Clubs across the country. This student-led community service group focuses on helping high schoolers aid their communities where they see need. Just like the Clubs themselves, each Keystone is a little different, a fact worth highlighting and celebrating.

Keystone members at the Ballard Club are essential helpers with events like Turkeyfest and monthly Parents Nights Out. Yet despite all that Keystone does around the Ballard Club, until this year there was not a space for Keystone members and their friends to hang out at the club after school.

Earlier in the year, we transformed the Club’s art room into the Keystone room, complete with couches, video games and a surround-sound stereo system. However, with small windows and white walls, the room was feeling a little drab. To bring the room to life, we decided to partner with local muralist Jeremy Trogstad.

Jeremy attended a few Keystone meetings to get input about what kind of design the Keystone kids wanted for their mural. Last weekend, he volunteered a day of his time to help our teens paint the mural, teaching them how to lay out the design on the wall, how to use spray paint to elicit different textures, and many other elements of the artistic process.

All in all, we had a blast and couldn’t be more grateful for Jeremy’s help in turning the art room into a space-themed home base for Keystone.