By Paula Vogler – Gillette, Wyoming … With planning well underway for the International Pathfinder Camporee to be held for the first time in Gillette, WY, in 2024, thoughts are turning to how the group can get involved with the community while they are there.

Community service projects are a big part of the camporee and for residents of Gillette that could mean seeing more murals spread throughout the town. Gillette resident Laura Chapman and Jessica Seders, Campbell County Convention & Visitors Bureau director, came up with the mural idea after learning about the camporee and the desire for its participants to get involved with their host community.

Chapman said the concept is simple: have local artists prep a mural somewhere and then have groups of pathfinders come to paint them in something like a paint by numbers format. However, she said executing that idea is going to take a lot of planning.

From lining up local artists and identifying locations for the murals to securing funding and supplies, Chapman said the planning will also include figuring out exactly how to coordinate this with the groups of pathfinders that sign up for a two or three hour block of time.

“It’s quite ambitious,” Chapman said. “I’d love to have 20 sites for them.  There’s a lot of pre-planning that needs to be done ahead of time, like how can we accomplish it in a set amount of time? What’s realistic to expect? We have a very talented pool of local artists. I’m really excited to get us all on the road to make this happen.”

Seders said Gillette already has a few artists who do murals and because Gillette is a “pretty active art community,” she is not concerned about finding artists to help.

“We do have a few artists who do murals already in town and their style is very different from each other so I think we’re going to see very different styles in the projects,” Seders said. “We have to identify property owners who will let us paint directly on the building or put up a canvas next to or on a building.”

Heather Rodriguez, a Gillette artist who completed a mural inside the town’s Adventurarium, said she saw the paint by number mural concept in action at Disney World. She said there, someone sat at a booth and when visitors came by, they received a paint container with a number on it and a foam brush to help paint the mural.

Rodriguez said there are so many ways to create murals, even ways to do it where they could be set up and taken down before the harsh Wyoming winters affect them.  As another project, she also suggested pathfinders could paint a number of fiberglass animals native to Wyoming like a fox or antelope and spread those around town. “It’s another way for the kids to be involved and have permanent art on display,” Rodriguez said. “I think we’re all created to make things. With kids it’s just this sense of doing something great. Creating something that has a lasting impact and value is really important.”

Chapman echoed those sentiments.

“I’d love to do something in such a way that when the kids come back next time they can say, ‘oh I did that,’” Chapman said. “It would be something to celebrate their efforts.”

Anyone interested in getting involved with the mural project is encouraged to contact Laura Chapman at 480-205-9879.

The International Pathfinder Camporee will be held at the Cam-Plex grounds August 5-11, 2024 with 55,000 pathfinders from 105 countries expected to attend.

— Paula Vogler writes for 2024 International Pathfinder Camporee; photos supplied

This article was originally published on International Camporee’s Facebook page.