A new mural painted along 2nd St SE next to The Hat's Olive Tap aims to give the community hope ( Tiffany Goodwein/ CHATNEWSToday)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Mural aims to give hope to the community

Sep 27, 2020 | 10:19 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB- Along 2^nd street SE at the edge of The Hat’s Olive Tap, freshly opened cans of blue, green, and black paint lay open. Volunteers unwrap the paint rollers and pour the saturated colours onto the paint tray. With a push of a hand, the paint rollers dive in, quickly losing their pure white aesthetic, and turning into a new colour. As the paint is rolled and pressed onto the cement wall it’s purpose is solidified.

Along the wall, the words, ‘ You have a hope and a future’ are etched in neon green and pink. A bright reminder to passerby’s in the community, that a thing called hope still exists.

“Sometimes life can be tough right now, you don’t know it you can’t see far ahead but, you have to be reminded that you do have a future, life’s not always going to be like this. It’s not always going to be tough, you are going to go through, you are going to make it” said Jeff Goring.

Goring is the organizer of Mural fest Medicine Hat and says the inspiration for the saying on the wall came from part of a bible verse.

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“All it is, is God saying I have a plan for your life and in that plan, it gives you plans for a hope and a future. So for me, I kind of trust in God with that and I know he’s got hope and future for me, and I see kind of the joy through that and so I just figured that this would be a good one to put on the wall downtown.”

Volunteers work to put together the mural downtown (Tiffany Goodwein/CHATNewsToday)

The implementation of the messaging comes as the community continues to mourn following a string of suicides in the city.

“Even today (Saturday) they are actually burying two people today doing funerals for two of them and one of them is a young kid. So it just shows you that you need the reminder,” said Goring, who noted he knew of one of the men who recently died by suicide.

“ You just don’t want to see people or family go through that ever. So this is a little thing that we can do to hopefully encourage those families that life is going to be okay and it sucks but it’s not going to be like this forever.” Goring said.

The outline of the mural on Saturday, was already garnering the attention of those walking downtown.

“I think this is really cool. I think this is a message that needs to be kind of thrown out there because I’ve lived in this city for the past 15 years and lately there’s been a lot of hope that’s been lost,” said Etheen Friesen.

Approximately 40 to 50 cans of spray paint will be used to complete the mural. Music from DJ Dan Baker will be playing as the artists work to finish the piece this weekend.