Giving Back to Fellow Gators

Candy Carson was impressed when she got her first look at the reading rooms named in her and her husband's honor at Youth's Benefit Elementary School. But to know they were painted by former YBES students who are now in high school delighted her.

"The fact that former students from here who are now in high school painted the murals—they actually executed the ideas and came up with the realization of the idea of the inside of a spaceship and made it come to reality," Carson said. "It's really exciting to see kids coming back and giving back."

Candy and Dr. Benjamin Carson co-founded the Carson Scholars Fund, which has overseen the opening of 41 such spaces in elementary schools throughout Maryland.

Tom Lusardi is a member of the Youth's Benefit Educational Foundation and oversaw the paintings that took place this summer.

"The students chose the themes, they sort of voted on a theme in each building. And being that the mascot is an alligator, that's kind of obvious that one of them was going to be a swamp," Lusardi said.

He said that five former YBES students from three different high schools painted the rooms. Becca Kotula, who attends John Carroll, led April Privett, who attends the Science and Math Academy in Aberdeen along with Fallston High's Lucas Crofton, Allison Stokes and Carey Titus.

Lusardi's children Matthew, who is a fifth grader at YBES and eighth grader Natalie, also helped with the initial base painting.

The space-themed room at the kindergarten through second grade room featured a spacesuit and helmet hanging from the ceiling as well as a pair of space boots in a corner locker. Paintings on the wall resembled a deep space journey and a control panel.

"The three-dimensional aspects, it's really cool," Carson said.

In the third through fifth grade building, a swamp theme compliments the school's alligator mascot. Lily pads and fireflies line the four walls and inside of the door.

Said Lusardi during the ceremonial assembly: "I can't draw an alligator. I can't draw a toad. These guys are amazing. They came in with a vision of what lives in a swamp and made it a reality."