Six MPS campuses benefited from new paint, landscaping work, and special projects — including a new mural by a renowned Milwaukee artist and MPS alum — in time for the new school year, thanks to 1,100 volunteers for GE HealthCare’s 30th annual Community Service Day.

The volunteers worked from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 23, contributing a staggering 7,700 volunteer hours to Milwaukee Public Schools.

“It’s our community; we live here. That’s what drives us,” said Jeannette Bankes, president and chief executive officer of Patient Care Solutions for GE HealthCare. “We are really passionate about the patients that we serve and the communities that we serve; this links into that vision.”

At Academia de Lenguaje y Bellas Artes (ALBA), a new mural is in the works. The mural is by Reynaldo Hernandez, the prolific Milwaukee muralist who painted the well-known eagle-and-dove “Mural of Peace” in Walker’s Point, seen daily by thousands traveling I-94. He began painting the mural with assistance from GE HealthCare volunteers and family; he expected it would take about a week to complete.

Mr. Hernandez attended the school when it was known as Walker Junior High School. Talented at art from early childhood, he was the school cartoonist at Walker and created the mascot, a wildcat. The wildcat he created appeared on all the school folders.

“I was really excited about that. That got me into commercial art,” he said, and he went on to study the field at the former Boys Technology and Trade School, now Bradley Technology and Trade School. He graduated from Tech in 1968 and went on to work in printing and as a courtroom artist for WTMJ-TV before striking out on his own as a muralist.

The ALBA building looks very similar to when it was Walker, Mr. Hernandez said, adding that he enjoyed his time there. “I still have some of the artwork from this school… We did a macaw, ceramic tile. This school was ahead of itself.”

Before the Community Service Day, Mr. Hernandez outlined his design on ALBA’s cafeteria walls, working around the windows and doorways. Volunteers from GE Healthcare and his daughter Rosalia, also a muralist, began painting. A brother of Mr. Hernandez's, another Walker Junior High alum, also was at ALBA to help. “It’s great to have all these volunteers helping. That’s a big help for me... So, when they’re done, I’ll miss them,” Mr. Hernandez said.

Students at ALBA, a bilingual and International Baccalaureate school, will likely see a bit of themselves reflected in the finished mural when they come to school on September 1. 

“We’re going to show what the school’s about on the walls,” Hernandez said. “We’re going to show the cultures — Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, South America, Spain... We’re going to show the landscape, the dance, the culture.” 

Over the years, he’s painted more than 15 MPS murals, he estimated, and has painted murals for other districts, including Racine, Kenosha, Burlington, and Stevens Point. He was happy to be painting another mural for an MPS school. 

“I’ve always loved MPS,” said Mr. Hernandez.

ALBA Principal Regina Navejar said, “To see Mr. Hernandez here, working on the very walls in the cafeteria where he ate, is a very MPS story. It might be unusual in other districts, but in this district, this is what happens here every single day. And that’s what’s really special.

"And the fact that it dovetails with GE HealthCare’s 30-year anniversary that started in Milwaukee — it’s like this beautiful, harmonious coming-around-full-circle-again. It’s very poetic, and what community-mindedness is, and giving of oneself and leaving a mark, and just remembering what’s special about this place, and all of our schools.”