“We spend a long time on our murals and incorporate the kids of the community into our project. Graffiti does disappear after we are in the neighborhood for a period of time. But graffiti is not the reason we will paint the mural. Our main reasons for painting a mural are to educate kids, produce fine art, and promote social change. Murals act as powerful forces in restoring the spirit of a besieged neighborhood.”
— Ogontz Avenue Art Company
Philadelphia’s Ogontz Avenue Art Company began in 1994 when city and suburban residents joined together to fight graffiti by painting murals. Their first “client” was a desperate small grocer whose store was tagged with graffiti two or three times a week. The plan: several adult artists would spend three weeks painting a mural on the side of his supermarket.
Over the course of the first day, 15 kids showed up and asked if they could help. By week’s end the number of kids brandishing paintbrushes stood at 50, growing to 150 within a month. The kids were so enthusiastic that the group requested more wall space from surrounding businesses.
What began as a three-week project has turned into nine years, with over 1,000 kids completing more than 35 murals in the Ogontz Avenue neighborhood and across Philadelphia. The creation of four art centers, 25 computer labs, and the “Computers for Philadelphia Kids Program” amplifies the group’s accomplishments.
The Ogontz Avenue Art Company teaches fine arts and computer graphics to kids too many people would dismiss as unreachable. “We are a heads-down company that is driven by the innate goodness of all kids,” they write. “When given a chance, kids will succeed in many unexpected ways.”
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A Philadelphia Inquirer journalist once wrote a story about the Ogontz Avenue Art Company and asked a group of kids working on a mural what they wanted to be when they grew up. They answered, almost in a chorus, “an artist.”
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