Kid Serve guides Bay Area youth through the process of creating public art in their communities. These service-learning projects integrate art, social values, curriculum and community service.
Since 1999, Kid Serve has supervised over 50 outdoor children's murals in Bay Area underserved schools and after-school programs. We currently host 7-8 mural residencies a year. Residencies last from 8 to 14 weeks long.

Kid Serve uses the teaching strategy of service-learning, described by the National Commission on Service-Learning as a teaching and learning approach that integrates community service with academic study to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.
For example, a mural based on the life of Cesar Chavez will incorporate a social studies and language arts curriculum. A mural on renewable energy can have a science and environmental component.

Each Kid Serve residency takes place within one to two classrooms partnering with one to two teachers (serving 30-40 kids per residency) and culminates in the creation of a permanent outdoor public art project somewhere in the community.



An artist comes to class twice a week for one hour and guides students through the design and creation of their mural. A residency includes field trips, outside speakers, videos, slide presentations, and art projects linked to the student's curriculum. The young artists then create their mural working in groups at the mural site. The final stage of the mural process is an unveiling ceremony where family, friends, members of the community and the press are invited to attend.

Most of the Kid Serve residencies are in STAR schools (low test scores) in under-served areas of the Bay Area, with a focus on Bayview/Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley. 80% of our students qualify for free lunch; 70% live at or below low income level. In May of 2002, 6th graders from Horace Mann Middle School created a mural called "People of the Mission District". Combining social studies curriculum, each student interviewed members of their community, wrote a biography and put them in a mural on the outside of their school. This mural was awarded "Best Youth Mural" by Precita Eyes Mural Center. This project was also featured in the Kellogg Institute video on service learning "Learning In Deed", hosted by Senator John Glenn.

Kid Serve has done over 50 murals with Bay Area youth.

The residencies include field trips, speakers, videos, slide presentations, homework assignments and art-based service learning activities like restoring an existing mural that has been vandalized. Early on in the workshop students visit the proposed site of their mural and do a community needs assessment. They write a report describing the site, but also how the completed project will impact their neighborhood. Students address problems that currently exist in their neighborhood, and how a public art project can help to solve these issues.