Vanquishing vandalism: West Seattle work party for Boren campus

Those volunteer-created murals are destined for display on the vacant Delridge site that’s been interim home to many local schools – the former Louisa May Boren Middle School – in hopes that’ll cut down on repeated graffiti/tagging vandalism. Community advocate Pete Spalding is leading the project and invites you to be part of the next step:

Many Delridge area residents were disappointed and frustrated when the Seattle Public Schools district chose to board up the Louisa Boren School this year due to inactivity of the site. A number of community members pointed out to the school district that this would lead to tagging and potential vandalism to the site. As many of you have noted, this has in fact been the case.

After many discussions with School Board President Steve Sundquist and others within the school district, an idea came up to deal with the problem.

On a recent Saturday, 900 Starbucks volunteers showed up to do projects in the Mt. Baker neighborhood. At Franklin and Muir they had over 200 of these volunteers doing painting, grounds cleanup, and playground projects. One of the painting projects was to paint 40 plywood murals for the Boren building.

Now we need volunteers from our Delridge community to help finish the project. These 40 murals still need to have the back and sides painted to help increase the longevity of the murals. On Saturday, June 4th from 9 – 11 am there will be a work party at the Louisa Boren School site. Please come out and help your community in this project to attempt to curtail the tagging and vandalism at this location. All of the materials and tools to do this project will be provided.

If you are interested in helping, contact Pete at bayouwonder@comcast.net or call him at 206.579.4373. (Boren’s status, in case you wondered, is that it’s remaining in the SPS inventory for possible emergency use.)

3 Replies to "Vanquishing vandalism: West Seattle work party for Boren campus"

  • John D. May 26, 2011 (10:45 am)

    I was going to Boren when the moved us up to Madison in the late seventies. Most of my family went there, and many were sad to see it shut down. While I thought that was saddening, it was worse to see it always on the verge of being permanently closed down. At least it’s used as an interim building for rehabitation of other buildings, but it’ll never get the respect from the temporary students because that’s not “their school.”

    It sure would be nice to see it opened up again for it’s own alma mater alumni or converted to something related to youth services and vocational training.

  • Beth May 26, 2011 (11:13 am)

    So very cool. I’m so glad to open the ol’ Blog this morning and the first story I see is POSITIVE!! Thanks guys. :)

  • Karen Lyons May 27, 2011 (7:07 am)

    We are a small neighborhood group trying to keep up the abandoned Genesee Hill School. Our fondest wish is that the school system would devise a way for the neighborhood to use the grounds and/or buildings for the good of the community. We have tried for years and hit school regulation roadblocks for every carefully thought out suggestion. We now have a few small gardens that keep people coming to the grounds and watching the property. But it took a year just to get permission to use a hose for the gardens.

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