Almost a year after starting the project, students from Tennyson High School’s Puente classes, an English language arts program, proudly unveiled their mural “¡La Puentización Es Oportunidad!” which translates in English to “Puentizatión Is Opportunity.” The mural represents the struggles and accomplishments they faced throughout the programs history.

The mural started as a visual depiction of the program’s mission and quickly became a representation of the importance of community building.

“This was the first of its kind [within Hayward], a college student, high school student community project,” said Emily Chow, outreach coordinator for Hayward Promise Neighborhood Center for Community Engagement. Chow helped produce the project.

“This was what I had envisioned when I joined the Hayward Promise Neighborhood Initiative–getting CSUEB students to care, support, and engage with the broader Hayward community.”

Six students from Tennyson High and two California State University East Bay students collaborated on the design putting in roughly 220 hours of work, said volunteer Maribel Wigon, a bachelor of fine arts student at CSUEB.

The Puente program has provided students from underserved backgrounds a community for educational engagement. Its purpose is to inspire students to receive their college degree and encourages them to come back to their community as mentors and leaders, said Daniel Guerrero, a Puente English teacher who helped jumpstart the mural process.

“The reason why we emphasize that is because we lose a lot of students along the way,” Guerrero said.

On average, Alameda County’s dropout rate was 13.1 percent in 2012, stated Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health’s kids data website.

Yet the program is effective. Students who are in the program have a better chance of graduating according to the program’s website.

Transfer students within the program have rose from 397 in 2001 to 573 in 2009. Additionally, 67 percent of Puente students graduate from college. This is in comparison to 35 percent statewide in 2010, according the Puente website.

In honor of the programs 30th anniversary, faculty, parents and students from Hayward high schools came to support the unveiling with approximately 150 people in attendance.

The brightly lit Puente lounge, room P-11, became the focal point of Monday nights celebration. Nearly covering two walls, from the left to right, the mural displays student protests from the 1980’s, after students called for better learning programs.

A bridge connects the path from Tennyson High to CSUEB, Chabot and Stanford University where a graduation is depicted with Puente students. In addition, the faces of the founders, Felix Galaviz, Pat Mcgrath and Senda Rios, of the Puente program are illustrated on a mountain something akin to Mount Rushmore.

The design changed several times, said Wigon.  When she first approached the project, Wigon said, the students ideas were bold. She helped them scale down the mural size to something in their skill set. Wigon and Sonny Tan, a business major minoring in art at CSU East Bay, worked closely with the students to finish the project.

“I’m very proud,” said Wigon, who mentioned the students had no prior art experience. Tan was the only student who had mural painting knowledge, and suggested they use acrylic paint because it was indoors, Wigon added.

After Guerrero, one of the three Puente teachers, asked for assistance, Chow reached out to CSU East Bay’s Art Professor Grace Munakata, who recruited Wigon and Tan for the community mural.

Donations came in all forms, from money to painting supplies. The first was from first-year Principal Lori Villanueva, who signed a $100 check to kick start the project.

After receiving several small donations, many from the volunteers and faculty at Tennyson High, Tan helped receive painting equipment from the University Art in San Jose.  Altogether, the mural costs were over $1,000 for paint and art supplies, Villanueva said.

The project soon became a joint effort between Tennyson High and CSUEB staff and students.

“Once the walls were primed, I spent many, many nights painting along side our CSUEB artists and Tennyson Puente students,” said Chow. “When the CSUEB artists couldn’t make it that week, I would step in and paint with the Puente students so that the project didn’t stall.”

The project started last April and was finished this last month.

“The mural represents a piece of legacy that CSUEB got to be a part of, but it also so shows that Tennyson High welcomes CSU East Bay,” said Chow. “Many of our students are graduates from Tennyson, Mt. Eden, and Hayward High and hopefully this project will show that just because you’re in college doesn’t mean you can’t give back to your community.”