Lion Magazine
April 1, 2020

Mural Increases Visibility of Lions

Girl Scout Gabrielle Edwards painted a mural as her Gold Award project and to give back to the local Lions banquet hall where she and her family spent so much of their time.

A new mural on the side of the Jefferson Township Lions’ clubhouse and banquet hall in Mount Cobb, Pennsylvania, has been drawing traffic.

The vibrant mural depicts a lion’s head with a full, brightly- colored mane showcasing the many local services, landmarks, and volunteer projects that make their community great.

Gabrielle Edwards, a high school junior and Girl Scout, designed, planned, and executed the project with the support of the club as her Gold Award project.

“[T]hey were very enthusiastic,” she told The Tri-County Independent. “I then had to actually pick what I wanted to paint. They gave me some ideas on what they’d like to incorporate, so I sketched up many lions and decided to do a cartoonish looking face with the mane full of our community spirit and energy.”

She chose bright, primary colors to maximize the visual impact of the mural. Once the wall was power washed and stripped of loose paint, she got to work. And, just as any good community project should, she had many helpers.

Her mother, Bonnie, and brother, Jack, helped her paint the base coat, and her mother – also an artist with several local murals to her name – helped her sketch the head. “We took my sketch of what I wanted and measured out the center. We then found the center of the wall and worked our way out, sketching with pencils and house paint. We finished the face the first day in the heat, followed by ice cream,” she told the Independent.

The mane was filled in with the help of her mom and friends over the next two weeks. Whenever they had free time, they would stop by and make progress. All together she estimates they spent about 60 hours painting.

PDG Gayle Padfield, a Jefferson Township Lion, says bookings at the banquet hall have increased since the mural went up. Built by members in 1972, the hall has always been popular. It’s a rural area without a lot of other options for events, and when the mural went up folks started driving by to get a glimpse of what all the fuss was about.

“We’re always surprised when people who have grown up here say they never knew we existed,” she says. But now they are coming by and booking events.

“It has raised the visibility of Lions in the town,” she says.

The club uses proceeds from the event bookings to fund two annual scholarships for local students.