Mural comes to Agawam Park on Saturday

An 8-foot-by-40-foot mural splotched with handprints, called the Reach for the Cure mural, will be on display at Agawam Park in Southampton Village on Saturday, and organizers of the interactive, traveling community art project, which benefits a local diabetes charity, want visitors to get a little messy.

The mural was begun Wednesday at the Robert K. Sweeney Summer Fun Days Diabetes Camp at the Suffolk County park in Yaphank, where campers—kids age 5 to 10, all of whom have diabetes—placed their handprints and the date of their diagnosis on the painting, beginning the initial bridge-like shape of the mural. From there, the community can place their handprints on the mural at one of the mural’s five stops across the island to show their support for those diagnosed with the disease, which prevents the body from either producing or properly using insulin, a hormone that is needed to convert food into energy.

The Reach for the Cure mural’s final stop on Long Island is the Chelsea Mansion on the Muttontown Preserve in East Norwich in early October, where it will be put on display at a two-day art festival and auction, which features a black-tie grand reception gala on October 3. From the Chelsea Mansion, the mural will piggyback on events for diabetes across the country, organizers hope.

At each stop on Long Island, including the first one at Agawam Park on Saturday, volunteer artists will help willing participants paint their hands, and place them strategically on the mural in the shape of a bridge, with a gap between the two sides. Organizers hope that at least 150 community members show up to get their hands painted and contribute to the mural at each stop.

The gala will benefit the Suffolk County Lions Diabetes Education Foundation, a part of the Suffolk County Lions Club. Andy Viola, the chairman of the recently-formed foundation, hopes the art event at the Chelsea Mansion will bring his group about $50,000, which he plans to use to purchase diabetes pumps, which are insulin monitors, as well as insulin meters and insulin itself.

Art from the Heart Productions, a group of volunteer artists based in Medford who put on art shows and festivals to raise money for not-for-profits, is organizing the mural project, and planning the painting’s journey around the island, which includes stops in Manhasset and Great Neck. Art from the Heart began about three years ago, when its founder, Shannon Elkins, organized an art auction for the Long Island Two Day Walk for Breast Cancer. Organizing an art event for diabetes seems like a natural fit for a group like Art from the Heart Productions, but, Ms. Elkins explained, the disease hit too close to home for her to jump right in and begin fund-raising for it. Her son, Rory, who is now 9, was diagnosed with the disease when he was 5.

“When you do a project, you have to talk about it a lot,” Ms. Elkins said, explaining why the project has a special meaning for her. “I couldn’t talk about diabetes without crying.”

Because of her close emotional connection to the disease, this is the first project Ms. Elkins has done in support of diabetes. But in October, when Ms. Elkins was at a walk for diabetes based out of the Patchogue-Medford School District, she began talking to Mr. Viola.

“We started talking about how to raise money for the foundation, how we could help the community,” Ms. Elkins explained.

After their meeting, Ms. Elkins began brainstorming ideas for a way to help the diabetes community and settled on the mural project.

“The idea for the mural came to me one day, and I thought of a way to do a mural and get the kids involved,” Ms. Elkins said. “Kids won’t be afraid to touch the mural with their handprints—it’s universal.”

The handprints that compose the mural are universal, Ms. Elkins explained. Each one is symbolic of everyone who is reaching for a cure, and, likewise, the general shape of the mural, two sides of a bridge stretching toward the sky, signifies that diabetes researchers have almost found a cure—but not yet.

“It looks like the rock bridges out west, where both sides come up but don’t touch,” Ms. Elkins said.

Mike Tisdell, the director of the camp in Yaphank, said Ms. Elkins approached him and that the partnership with Art from the Heart seemed natural.

“It’s a symbiotic relationship—because we have a camp for children with diabetes, and she has a project that will be helping people with diabetes, the children will be able to participate in a project that will eventually be able to come back and help them,” said Mike Tisdell. “We’re helping her, but it comes back and helps them, and we’re having fun in the interim.”