‘A prevention campaign that doesn’t focus on scare tactics’: Youth paint mural to raise awareness for overdose prevention

In a downtown Spokane alleyway on Tuesday, under the hot July sun, six students and two supervisors painted a mural.

The mural, located on the back of the Crescent Building, 725 W. Main Ave., depicted a group of friends sitting on a bed of grass. In the upper left corner were the words “Friends for Life prevent overdose.”

“Friends for Life” isn’t just a slogan – it’s the name of a campaign run by the Washington State Health Care Authority begun in 2022 to spread awareness about fentanyl use and help prevent fentanyl-related deaths.

This organization collaborated with an apprenticeship program in Spokane to create the mural, visible off of Post Street behind Red Robin.

Rose Honey, a local artist, activist and teacher at West Valley High School, is the leader of the Hillyard Mural Apprenticeship, a new program that teaches six Spokane high schoolers how to make murals.

“It’s a curriculum where they get to learn all the skills,” Honey said. “Not just the technical skills it takes to make a mural, but to work with community members, work with the business, have communication skills, pitch their ideas, listen to feedback, and make edits and changes.”

George Ivy, one of the apprentices, was informed about the program by one of his teachers at On Track Academy. Ivy is passionate about all forms of art. He enjoys painting and is “currently trying to animate right now, too,” he said.

The apprentices already have painted several murals in the Hillyard district. For the month of July, they are learning about working with and building community – the inspiration behind this particular mural.

“The cool thing is allowing students to be able to create art with a beautiful cause,” Honey said. “To highlight and to shine on not just the opioid epidemic, but community, taking care of each other, loving on each other, supporting each other.”

The mural’s core goal is to expand beyond showing the dangers of opioids to showing the benefits of community.

“It’s a prevention campaign that doesn’t focus on scare tactics,” said Hannah Bottino, a creative director of the Friends for Life campaign. “Every aesthetic and creative decision has been made to encourage warmth and friendliness.”

This is Friends for Life’s first mural. The group didn’t seek out its location, Bottino said, but the location they were given by the Downtown Spokane Partnership suits their message well.

“It’s right downtown. There’s so much good traffic,” she said. “Downtown is a really important place for youth and young adults, which this campaign is mostly for.”

The mural highlights Spokane’s landscape: The green backdrop represents the city’s parks, Bottino said, and the art “captured some good old Manito squirrels.”

The primary goal of the mural is making the opioid epidemic feel like something that can be helped through community rather than something to fear.

“We need to destigmatize it,” Honey said of the epidemic. “We have a lot of preconceived notions, and then we’re stereotyping. When we remove that and we see people just as people … we see that if we are just there for each other … we can offer love and support.”

Ivy had a similar vision.

“Fellowship,” he said when asked what he hopes the art will achieve. “You know, actually coming together. You don’t see people around here often hanging out.”

This mural hopes to change that.