Following two incidents of hateful graffiti at the Wayland Community Pool, including a racist message and a swastika, residents, students, and local organizations came together to transform the area into a colorful mural celebrating unity, healing, and belonging.
The Oct. 25 ribbon-cutting ceremony at the pool celebrated the completion of the mural, which displays vibrant imagery of nature, including butterflies, a blue heron, flowers and a rainbow, symbolizing themes of peace, transformation, and a new beginning.
Muralist Lena McCarthy, a Wayland High School graduate, to design and paint the mural, which is located along the exterior wall of the pool building on the high school campus.
Heidi Heilman of Wayland, who led the project, said the idea came about following the second incident, in March 2025, when residents started discussing ways to respond to the racist graffiti.
“This isn’t the Wayland I know,” she said. “There’s so much good going on in Wayland.”
Rather than simply covering up and painting over the graffiti, Heilman and other residents wanted to transform the wall into something that reflected the community’s values.
This project eventually came to be the Wayland Community Pool Mural Initiative, bringing together a 10-member planning team and individuals connected to various organizations including WaylandCAN, Arts Wayland and the town’s Human Rights, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.
The project also received widespread support from residents, local businesses and community organizations who contributed financially to help bring the mural to life.
Heilman said the project was intended to give residents an opportunity to take meaningful action and create change beyond just community discussions.
“I really wanted to do something,” Heilman said. “It was a way to take action, and I wanted to do something that wasn’t just talking… I wanted to create something beautiful somehow in that space because it was so dark and it had become such a dark space.”
McCarthy said she wanted the artwork to create a calming atmosphere while also including symbols of healing and growth.
The mural design took shape through two rounds of community surveys that gathered input from students and residents about what they wanted the mural to represent.
Nature emerged as a strong, recurring theme, which inspired McCarthy to incorporate elements reflecting both the local environment and the community’s effort to transform the area into a welcoming and positive space.
The butterflies and cocoons represent transformation and growth, while a seedling symbolizes a new beginning. Human hands represent connection and a lotus flower represents a theme of compassion.
McCarthy said balancing her artistic vision with the community’s input was one of the project’s greatest challenges but also one of its most rewarding aspects.
“As an artist, it’s rewarding to be able to stay true to your own vision, but also meet the needs of the project and the community,” McCarthy said.
Janot Mendler de Suarez, a local resident and member of Wayland’s Human Rights, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee who participated in the mural initiative, said the project demonstrated the importance of community collaboration.
She said the hateful incidents deeply affected the community, particularly due to how close the wall was to the high school.
The project represented an opportunity for residents to show their commitment to creating a welcoming community. “I think of art as a form of activism’ it builds solidarity,” Mendler de Suarez said.
She said the mural does not mean the community has completely healed from the incidents, but rather it serves as a reminder of the work that remains.
The initiative received financial support from over 100 local donors and contributors, raising more than $29,000 toward its $33,000 fundraising goal, according to an Oct. 6 press release. Additional fundraising will support lighting around the mural to improve its visibility and security.
Heilman said organizers also discussed potentially transforming the surrounding area into a public gathering space with gardening and seating, although that would require additional funding and maintenance.
McCarthy said she hopes future generations will recognize the care and effort that went into transforming the space.
“I really do hope people get a sense that there was a lot of care put into that space, and a sense of tranquility,” McCarthy said. “I hope that that sense of like intentionality and love and care carries forward.”
This story is part of a partnership between the Wayland Post and the Boston University Department of Journalism’s Newsroom program.
