New Murals Celebrate Staff, Including the Artist

When we reopen our schools for hybrid learning in April, the first thing staff at both sites will see is a brand new graffiti mural, “Celebrating Our Staff.” Painted in our signature Kennedy colors, the murals will display names of team members who have been with us for 5 years, all the way through 40 years. 

 "Graffiti has always been about community," the artist, Anthony Concepcion, explains. "It's about wanting to be seen and acknowledged."

Anthony is about to celebrate his own five-year anniversary with KCC as our Facilities Coordinator. "I'm the boots-on-the-ground guy," he explains. "Every day my job is different. I'm the in-between between program staff, administrative staff, community members; I've always been a jack of all trades, so it works for me."

If you'd told Anthony five years ago that he would be working at a preschool, he wouldn't have believed you. But after years of working odd jobs, and with the encouragement of his older brother, he decided to go for his GED. Shortly afterwards he started working for a cleaning company, and was assigned part-time to KCC's newly-built Manhattan school.

A year in, the Executive Director asked him to come into her office. "I was sweating bullets," Anthony laughed. "You don't get called in by the boss unless you're in trouble!" But Jeanne told him that she and some of the other directors had noticed his hard work and wanted to hire him. The "grow your own" approach that KCC takes toward teaching staff applies to every position at the agency. She gave him the job description and list of responsibilities, and asked if he would accept a new position as Facilities Coordinator for the two school sites.

"I had to think about it," he said. "That responsibility list was a lot! It's not that I hadn't ever been responsible, but no one had ever given me the chance to be responsible for more. I came back the next day and said, I'm not sure I deserve this, but you can be sure I'm going to earn it."

Five years later, he says, "Life is so much different and I think about things a lot differently. Seeing the children running around all happy... and the staff, everyone smiles and says good morning! I learned to talk a lot more, and sometimes I blurt out the wrong thing, but I got very lucky that you guys accepted me for all my craziness and my quirks." 

"Some journeys take longer than usual, but we get there," Anthony says. And how does it feel now to paint the staff appreciation murals? "It feels… wonderfully nostalgic," Anthony said. "This is something I used to enjoy, and now I get to do it for people I really love."

"And," he added, "It's not illegal!"