GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — To most, the warehouse at Walnut and South Front Streets near downtown Grand Island just looked like another aging building. But to Sharena Arriola Anson, it looked like hundreds of feet of blank canvas. Now, that canvas is coming to life as The Mural Project.

“I was driving by one day and we have this ginormous wall behind us. It was getting a little run down, there was some barbed wire up top," Arriola Anson said. "It just kind of looked like a place for a perfect opportunity for a little more color.”

Great Plains Countertop owns the building and loved the idea to create murals on the wall so much that it donated to the project.

So Arriola Anson started recruiting local artists on social media. They don’t need formal training, just a desire to add color to their town.

“It’s paint, right. If you don’t like it, you paint over it," Arriola Anson said. "What we’re hoping to do is create that community of artists, so that maybe from this, they can get to know each other and then move on to the next project and continue painting the town.”

14 artists have contributed so far, including Andrea Hall of Grand Island.

“I think that’s the hardest part on these walls is getting it in these little pock holes," Hall said. "So I have to sit here and, like, beat up the wall.”

Each mural is sponsored by a business. The artist gets a $500 commission and $250 to put towards paint. But the project is more about spirit than spending money.

“We were cold the other day and I didn’t notice," Hall said. "I feel like I’m doing my passion. It’s good for me.”

Hall is on her second mural… a painting of the sunset on the Platte River. She says the mural project is already making a difference.

“Oh, can’t you tell already? I think when you drive by you see the color, right? I think it makes people smile and that’s better than a plain white wall,” Hall said.

That’s what it’s all about for the project’s creator.

“It’s about bringing the community together,” Arriola Anson said. “That’s what it means to me, and it’s working and it’s awesome.”

Arriola Anson hopes The Mural Project will live on beyond this wall. Once it’s completed in the spring, she plans to move on to another space in town.