COMMUNITY ASSISTANCE: Giving a creative gift

Local artist lights up the walls of new WestCare facility

Elisabeth Shurtleff is not giving a monetary donation to the new WestCare location at 5659 N. Duncan Drive, but what she is giving might be considered even more valuable.

So far, Shurtleff has spent more than 77 hours painting a mural on the wall of a playroom for the facility, which provides substance abuse treatment for single mothers while allowing their children to be present during the rehabilitation.

Shurtleff said she identifies with the children in some respects, as she was a child of a single-parent household and found a love for painting as a result of spending time with her grandfather.

"I've been painting for quite a long time," she said. "My mom was a single mom and in the summers I would stay with my grandfather and he encouraged me to paint murals on his garage walls. I've always had some sort of artistic thing going on, but this is the first one I've done as an adult."

Shurtleff, a marketing specialist/web administrator for Business Bank of Nevada, got involved with the WestCare project through other business colleagues.

They heard she was to embark on a mural painting task for a different group and that it had fallen through. Business Bank encourages all of their employees to contribute to a local charity organization or volunteer their time to the community somehow, and Shurtleff's talents happened to be just what WestCare needed.

"Business Bank is very involved in community activities," she said. "They are always looking for different opportunities. I mentioned that I'd be interested in doing it for another place, and when WestCare indicated that they wanted murals, the people I work with thought of me."

Ecstatic about the possibility of leaving a permanent reminder of her contribution on a wall, Shurtleff has nearly finished her mural, which consists of images of children that she transposed onto the wall and filled in with color.

There may be more Shurtleff-painted walls in the facility in the near future after this one is complete. Her main goal was to make the image kid-friendly.

"The facility is going to have kids up to 15 with their moms," she said. " I wanted it to be bright and colorful, and I wanted something I thought would appeal to kids. I wanted something that would include younger and older kids that was positive. My goal is to have them feel a little more lighthearted. It's been quite a big project."

Shurtleff said her boss and colleagues at Business Bank have been very supportive of her efforts. The value of contributing such a large gift to WestCare was inspirational for her, and she wants the actual mural to be inspirational for residents.

"To be able to do something like this for some of these kids that might be a little uplifting, is really great," she said. "A lot of times you can make a difference in the world if you have a lot of money, but if I don't necessarily have that, I like the idea that I can still contribute.

"My grandfather used to say that no matter what kind of day he had, when he drove in and saw that wall, he would smile. If one kid feels a little better by looking at this mural I paint, no matter how imperfect it is, that makes it all worth it."


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