Students Seek to Improve and Beautify Gilroy High with Mural Project

A mural project that aims to motivate Gilroy High students to travel down an academic path, while improving the 100-year-old campus’ aesthetic appeal, was recently unveiled by a group of students operating under a newly-formed club called Mustangs Vision Project (MVP).

“We are doing this because we want to encourage our students to go to college,” said MVP member Juan Refugio Davalos, who also serves as the vice president for the school’s freshman class. 

Mustang Vision Project, formed in February by Gilroy High junior Jonahluis Galvez, functions with the goal of motivating students to help their school and community by fundraising for needed school supplies and creating art projects to beautify the campus. 

The mural includes representations of major universities so students can connect their future academic path with their current one at Gilroy High. To achieve this, members brainstormed ways to incorporate colleges with GHS’s student services center and settled on MVP member and sophomore Amiti Munish’s design.

“The mural is a mustang, [but it replaces] the hair into banners of popular colleges that our students go to,” Davalos said. 

Some colleges flanked in the mustang’s mane include San Jose State, UC Davis, UCLA, Stanford and Cal Poly.

While the mustang mural only took seven hours to paint, months of planning and preparation went into the project. Eventually, a $75 donation from Home Depot and gift cards from Lowes helped MVP make their vision a reality.

Galvez said students don't have many resources for funding, citing the sour economy and  as factors making it difficult to obtain the supplies and support they need—which is why she decided to create a club that’s capable of producing results and creating change with the resources they do have: students. 

Currently, 11 students count themselves in the ranks of MVP.

"The great thing about MVP is that we're not tied down to any group. We're freelancers,” said Galvez, who also serves as a student representative with the Gilroy Unified School District Board of Education. 

Three GHS staff members are helping the club find funding for future projects, which include raising funds for school supplies, new textbooks and for the school’s athletic department. 

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