Erie Arts & Culture was awarded a grant through the Erie Community Foundation and Young Erie Philanthropist to support a youth mural project. To accomplish this project, EAC partnered with the Erie Center for Arts and Technology and recruited Erie-based artists Steve Mik and Brian Bonner to design and teach a multi-week course that leads students through the process. Students identified that they want to use the mural as an opportunity to speak to gun violence in the City of Erie. Specifically, they want to create imagery that positively combats acts of gun violence and the effect it has on the community. The class was joined by the Mayor of Erie, Joe Schember.  Steve and Brian engaged students in conversations and creative processes to explore how they can accomplish their thematic objective without employing imagery that runs the risk of glorifying or giving too much power to guns. The title of the piece is “Growth Over Guns.”