The Rosa Parks Peace Park was created by participants in the Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities Project in 2006, 2007 and 2008 over the course of three summers.  YES youth, assisted by neighborhood advocates, cleared two heavily overgrown vacant lots, planted gardens, installed benches, walkways and a “circle of peace” during the first two years. Signage was built and installed by members of a local high school honors society.  The final year they added fences, and created a mural illustrating scenes from the civil rights movement.  A local artist volunteered to paint a portrait mural of Rosa Parks, which was also installed at the park.  Many local businesses donated materials to the park project and community members pitched in to help the youth.

In 2007, the YES for Peaceful Communities youth wrote and recorded a rap song, entitled: "We are the YES".  The idea to do a rap song as a project was generated in 2008 during the “Hip-hop for social change” unit of the curriculum. The youth really liked the idea of creating music for their final project. As the youth worked through the community assessment portion of the program, they focused on how they could affect the community through song.  Project staff found a civic-minded local music producer that had a mobile recording studio.  The music producer helped the participants to create the hook and focus the message. The youth idea for the temp/beat beat was translated into an electronic beat. YES youth laid the vocal tracts for “We are the YES”. https://soundcloud.com/youthempowermentsolutions/yes-we-in-control

The Tulip Garden was a mini-project completed in the fall of 2007. At the start of a YES meeting, the students expressed concern that no one was taking care of the raised beds in front of their school.  After discussion, the group decided to adopt the raised bed. The youth decided that they would like to clear the bed and plant tulips for the spring. Participants contacted a local garden shop that had been impressed by the YES efforts at the Rosa Parks Peace Park project.  YES purchased 100 tulip bulbs and the garden store provided a 3 to 1 match- for a total of 400 tulip bulbs!  The participants learned how to plant bulbs, and planted more than 300 bulbs in the garden. Each student also received bulbs to take home and plant at locations of their choosing- further beautifying the community. The next spring they planted other perennials and annuals in the bed.

The Hands for Peace mural was created by participants in the Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities at Holmes Middle School in 2005 and 2006. In 2005, the students wanted to get the word out about YES. After getting the owners’ permission, the participants whitewashed the wall of a local convenience store and painted the YES logo. The next year, the idea to add the “Hands For Peace” section came from an idea to pledge to stay violence free. Students stenciled and painted the “Hands For Peace” message on the wall below the YES logo. Participants, staff and community members painted their hands and put their hand prints on the walls as a demonstration of their commitment to that pledge.

The YES youth in Flint identified the graffiti on the sides of locally-owned stores as a community  liability.  They felt that the graffiti was a symbol of violence and they wanted to paint a mural over the graffiti as a way to communicate the importance of non-violence.  The Boat Mural, which was competed in 2007, represents several themes. The youth worked as a team to generate the themes: intergenerational connections, community liabilities and the desire for the community to move forward.   The bridge represents inter-generational connection between adults (represented by the buildings, with strong foundations) and youth (represented by the flowers, as new growth). Community liabilities (bottles, handcuffs, gun) are under water to indicate the community is moving past them.  The boat represents the importance of love in bringing the community together. The writing on the wall is a poem written by a YES alumni the previous year. The students liked the poem and had it incorporated into the mural.  A local artist helped the participants to merge those themes and words into a paper draft of the mural.  The artist outlined the picture and the words on the wall and the students applied the paint.

The result is an outstanding piece of art for the community to enjoy. It is interesting to note, that even though the mural is located in an area that has lots of graffiti, in the years since the mural was painted it has never been tagged by graffiti.