In the course of November, Valencia students, faculty, and staff participated in Gratitude Graffiti month. It was held by Student Development in support of Gratitude Graffiti, a nationwide project that aims to illustrate gratitude through various art forms.

The month consisted of GratiTuesdays, kicking off on Nov. 3. Each Tuesday featured a new gratitude related activity. Nov. 10 was Verteran’s Day Appreciation with a picture collage, Nov. 17 was Community Day with rock painting, and Nov. 24 was Cultural Appreciation with Japanese origami.

For these events, Student Development put together Gratitude Graffiti Activity Boxes. These packages contained rocks and paints for the rock painting activity along with origami paper and instructions for the Japanese origami activity.

“Each Tuesday in November, we wanted to express gratitude to different populations. The Gratitude Graffiti Activity Box contained materials needed for two of our four GratiTuesday events,” explained Julie Wehmeyer, an East campus program specialist at Valencia College.

In conjunction to the weekly activities, Student Development also held a Gratitude Graffiti Art Contest. The theme challenged students to create artwork that expressed what gratitude means to them. Multimedia submissions were accepted on Engage from Nov. 1 up until Nov. 30.

“Students often enjoy showing their art and talent, and this contest allowed all forms of art to be submitted, including dance, song, poetry, ceramics, and more,” continue Wehmeyer.

The art contest was organized by Student Development’s Student Leaders. Trinity Tresner, 21, a general studies major, assisted with outlining the guidelines for the art contest and came up with the rock painting idea for Community Day.

“I wanted to incorporate it because I had actually found a rock about a year ago […] in my community. I looked under it, and on the back side, it said ‘you’re worth it’ or something like that. I was having a bad day, so it brought me to tears to see that. I still have that rock today,” said Tresner.

Information regarding the month-long event as well as an IGTV video that demonstrates how to create a Japanese origami crane can be found on Student Development’s Instagram page, @studentdevcw.