Mural Project

On a rainy Friday afternoon in March, about a dozen members of the SOS Berks Opioid Coalition gathered at Albright College’s new Total Experience Learning art studio for an unusual meeting.

The group, which convenes regularly to address issues related to the opioid crisis in Berks County, had come together to work on a unique project that, when finished, will convey a powerful message of hope and recovery.

Brandishing paint brushes, they began the simple, meditative task of painting in the swirling, pre-drawn lines on panels of what will become the first SOS Berks Mural.

When finished, the mural will consist of 60-plus panels that will be adhered to a building beside a popular Hispanic market located on the corner of 8th & Oley Streets in Reading. It will feature a portrait of a young man wearing a sombrero, holding a mantle that contains images from his past. The background is a lush beach overhung with palm leaves, replete with sunset colors, and a young boy struggling with a kite.

The mural is based on the recovery story of Jose Lugo, who struggled for many years with substance use disorder. Today, he serves as President/CEO of Recovery Coaching Services in Reading.

He credits his recovery to the support of his family and the memories he formed during his youth in Puerto Rico. He hopes the mural reminds all who view it of the role relationships play in helping people recover.

“This mural reflects the importance of the family in recovery,” he said. “That early unconditional love and caring my family gave me helped me through those tough times.”

A series oF murals

SOS Berks has a vision for developing a series of murals throughout Berks County that share stories of county residents in recovery. The murals are intended to help reduce stigma and communicate hope.

“The SOS Berks membership is excited for these murals with recovery messages to be seen by Berks County residents. The artwork is amazing and the murals are a beautiful and innovative way to convey that people do recover and live meaningful, productive lives,” said Kathleen Noll, Executive Director of the Council on Chemical Abuse and Co-chair of SOS Berks.

The murals are an extension of a stigma-reduction campaign the coalition undertook several years ago that focused on the message “Addiction Doesn’t Define Anyone,” and featured short videos from people in recovery telling their stories.

But the idea of sharing stories of recovery through community art projects was not originally part of that campaign. That came much later, following the 2021 completion of the “Hope Blossoms” mural located on Franklin Street in Reading and sponsored by the Berks County Suicide Prevention Task Force as part of its ruOK Berks campaign.

That mural, which spells out the word HOPE atop eyecatching and colorful imagery surrounding a silhouette of a flower-filled head, aims to erase the stigma of mental illness and raise awareness of suicide prevention.

When then-Berks County Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt, a former co-chair and founding member of SOS Berks, saw “Hope Blossoms,” he proposed undertaking a similar project to provide hope for recovery and reduce stigma against those struggling with addiction.

That idea was well-received by the coalition, whose members set about seeking possible locations and partners, and who quickly latched onto the concept of developing a series of murals to relay many different stories of recovery.

To date, two locations have been identified, and two murals designed. In addition to the 8th & Oley mural, there is a second mural based on the recovery story of Council on Chemical Abuse Community Program Specialist Yvonne Stroman that will be located near the campus of Albright College on 11th and Richmond Streets.

A community project

The SOS Berks murals would not be possible without the partnership of Albright College and Mike Miller. A former high school art teacher for the Wyomissing School District, Miller is the founder of Berks Community Murals and is currently an artist-in-residence at Albright College.

Over the past 20 years, Miller has coordinated more than 50 community art projects in collaboration with local organizations, including “Hope Blossoms.”

He believes that the value of a public art project lies not only in the aesthetic beauty it provides, but also in the collaborative nature of producing the art. Everyone who touches the art, who paints their small section of a sky or leaf or lock of hair, feels forever connected to that work.

“The artwork is beautiful. But having hundreds of people paint it makes it so much better,” Miller said.

SOS Berks and Miller are organizing numerous painting sessions, so that many different community groups and individuals can participate in painting the murals. The fact that so many people will contribute makes it a particularly fitting project for SOS Berks, which is itself a community coalition.

“Substance misuse and substance use disorder are issues that impact the entire community,” said Berks County Commissioner Michael Rivera, who is also the Co-chair of SOS Berks. “These murals will not only engage many, many community members during the painting process, but they will provide a profound message of hope that will be highly visible within our community.” continued on next page

The process OF creAtIng a mural

The first step in creating the murals was to identify the people whose stories would be reflected in the artwork, and then to find local artists who could use those stories as a springboard to develop a design.

Once the design is completed, the artists work with Miller to project the artwork onto a wall, where it is enlarged and hand-drawn onto numerous panels on a material known as parachute cloth. They create a paint-by-number image, with numerous swirling sections, and then mix paints that are numbered according to the colors in the image.

When community groups arrive at a painting session, they are provided with paints in numbered plastic containers, and brushes. They simply need to fill in the spaces associated with their numbers.

While there, they will also have the opportunity to learn more about the work of SOS Berks, and to add their voices to the conversations around addressing the opioid crisis.

“Bringing all these people together—that’s what this is all about,” said Miller.

To learn more, or to sign up to help paint, visit sosberks.org.

Jose’s sTory

Artist Leslie Ramos met with Jose Lugo last year, and as he told his story she listened, took notes, and sketched out scenes in her notebook.

Jose talked about growing up on a farm in Puerto Rico, his love of horses, the beauty of the land, the deep connection he had to his family. He confided how, as a young teenager, he came to America and soon after began taking drugs. For many years he struggled with addiction, incarceration and attempts to recover. His family never gave up hope. They supported him and that support, that love, sustained him and ultimately led him to recovery.

He talked about a recent trip to Puerto Rico, during which he visited a beach, accompanied by a young relative flying a kite. That simple act is one of many things he can enjoy and appreciate because he is in recovery.

“You see me sitting here,” he told Leslie during that interview. “But what you are not seeing is my family is surrounding me, rejoicing in my recovery.”

Leslie captured as many elements as possible into the mural she created. But she made a point of doing it in such a way that it related not the story of one man, but of many people.

“In designing the mural, I mostly considered the community as a whole,” she explained. “How it could represent anyone— Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, anyone. And that it was something that could resonate with people.”

YvOnne’s STOry

The mural based on the story of Yvonne Stroman will be located on a building on Richmond and 11th Street, easily visible from the Albright College Total Experience Learning Building where many of the panels will be painted.

For that mural, Yvonne sat in the art studio with Berks County artist Marian Naji and told her story. As a teen, she loved athletics and reading, and she attended college intent on becoming a lawyer. But soon after enrolling, she discovered alcohol.

“I really liked the feeling of alcohol. This led to years of consistent drinking,” she admitted.

She struggled for nearly a decade until, at one point, she wound up in jail and asked herself “Is this what I want for the rest of my life?”

She accepted a proposal from her attorney to go into treatment. “I said I want to go to treatment because I didn’t want to die. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Today Yvonne works for the Council on Chemical Abuse, where she manages the RISE Recovery Center and numerous other projects to support others in recovery. She finds great joy in riding her bike, mentoring young people, and helping others find their pathways to recovery.

In designing her mural, Naji incorporated a photo of Yvonne dressed in a colorful dashiki, surrounded by images of bicycles, the pathways filled with some of Yvonne’s most thought-provoking statements like “This is the journey you are supposed to be on.”

In addition to Naji, artist Gregory Didyoung digitized the photo and other patterns, some of which will be painted directly onto the building.

Yvonne said the mural deftly conveys the message of recovery as a journey. “We all come from different pathways in our journey in life,” she said. “But no matter the shade of our skin, or who we are, male or female, we all share a story of recovery. It’s a reminder of who we are.”