VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — A local nonprofit and artist are teaming up to bring new art to a historic park.
Virginia Beach’s Seatack community has been around for more than 200 years. Its community park has seen a lot of changes in that time. Now, with a fresh coat of paint on the basketball court, community members want to welcome you to their park.
Seatack is the only home Elizabeth Mills has ever known.
“I still live in the house I was born in,” Mills said when we met her in the Seatack Community Park. “This is a special place. Most people just look at this and think it’s an ordinary park, but Seatack Park means a lot to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, and a lot of good memories.”
She’s one of the people who’s been asking the city to improve the park.
“Just want to say ‘welcome to our park,'” Mills said. “We got one shelter, we got one porta potty and we would love to have a multipurpose area and like a walking track, soccer field, those kinds of things that people still enjoy.”
The ViBe Creative District was listening.
Kate Pittman, ViBe Creative District Executive Director, said, “We have a close-knit community here and some of our board members and city council reps knew that the Seatack community was wanting to see something positive happen here at the park, so we did what we do best, which was reach out to our community stakeholders and ask who could help.”
Pittman reached out to Troy Summerell, the artist behind OnieTonie.
“It was actually on my bucket list to do a basketball court, so a great opportunity, community-driven,” Summerell said.
Together, they organized a community paint day using his design on the court.
“To paint an entire court in one day, you know, is not easy, so it was just a big community event, a big community effort,” Summerell said. “I’m stoked how it came out. Just grateful to be a part of it though, to be honest with you.”
“People were truly excited to give back and beautify their local park,” Pittman said.
The final product is not only believed to be the first painted court in the city, but something everyone can be proud of.
“It’s a breath of fresh air because we’ve been trying to do this for over 20, 30 years and we can see it over the horizon with the ViBe’s help and we really appreciate them,” Mills said.
