Bordentown Regional Middle School’s lavatories and locker rooms were given a fresh, new look over the summer.
A local girl scout, Rayna Smith, was the reason for those improved settings.
Rayna designed and painted inspirational messages on the walls for students as part of her Gold Award project.
Rayna, a member for Troop 23921, dedicated seven months toward her project that was titled “Be a Ray of Mighty Sunshine.”
Among her inspirational messages that she painted on the walls were “you are stronger than you think” and “doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
Her time was devoted to planning fundraising, scheduling and then painting, while she had to address and overcome several obstacles along the way.
Although Rayna is currently in 10th grade at Bordentown Regional High School, part of her decision to make an impact on her community through her project initiated from reflecting on her experiences in middle school, where she felt students could be faced with multiple challenges.
“I know from experience that middle school can be a rough time for students. During these years, there are many physical, emotional, hormonal and social changes going on in students’ lives,” she said. “My goal was to not only affect the students attending the school now, but also those who attend in the future as well as those who come in contact with a student who was affected positively.”
Once Rayna had her project proposal approved by the Girl Scout Council and the middle school principal Joseph Sprague, she got right to work.
Starting in May, she planned her designs, set up a work schedule with the middle school principal and worked to fund the project for paint and supplies.
As Rayna promoted her project through social media and bulletin posts, she said she had a difficult time soliciting funds from local craft and hardware stores to budget her supplies, but she felt fortunate enough to receive support from the people in her community.
“I was forced to mostly depend upon donations of supplies and gift cards from friends and family – luckily I was fortunate in this area,” Rayna said. “I used money I earned during cookies sales for any additional funds that I needed.”
Even in the early stages of the project, she had to overcome more complications when she was dealt with an injury, temporarily limiting her abilities to perform her initial plan. Once again, the continuous support from those around her helped get the job done.
“During the planning process, I suffered a broken wrist, which made some of the tasks a little more difficult to complete, but not impossible,” Rayna revealed. “While I reached out to a lot of students at the start of my project, unfortunately there weren’t as many students as I had hoped that volunteered to help with the painting. However, I was able to get commitments from family, friends and even teachers during the painting process.”
Once Rayna was fully healed and began painting the designs herself, she said she still received help, but willingly took on the majority workload of the project. As people began to take notice of her work, Rayna said she felt encouraged by their positive reactions.
“I felt really good doing it because something as simple as painting can change somebody’s day,” she said. “While I was painting, there were kids from the summer school that walked by and got excited. They told me it looked really good, so it made me feel really good about myself.”
Throughout the painting process, Rayna said she also worked to make her project more inclusive, wanting to recruit people from the middle school’s clubs and groups to apply their impressions as well.
“I wanted to see if they had any ideas because I didn’t want this to be all about me. I wanted them to be engaged in it also,” said Rayna. “It’s painting, it’s something I enjoy doing and also making an impact on other people.”
When she completed her project in late August, she said she aspires for her work to not only leave a positive influence on current and future students, but also wants to see it become a continuous canvas for future students to add onto.
“It’s all about making a positive impact on our community, and it will eventually get the kids involved and be sustainable,” said Rayna. “I’d like for someone to add to it every year until the walls are full. I’d like to walk into the school in a few years to see the walls and think, ‘I started this.’”