High School Seniors Create Amazing Chalk Art For Boy With Special Needs

SOUTH  JORDAN, Utah – All across Utah, people are finding ways to spread kindness during coronavirus isolation. Three high school seniors in South Jordan are using their artistic talents. Their incredible chalk drawings are bringing smiles to one special little boy.

With all the celebrations of their senior year canceled because of COVID-19, Breanna Jones and her friends Kelli Barker and Deidre Brown are spending more time outside coloring.

“I always drew when I was little,” said Breanna, who goes to Bingham High School.

Her chalk art is a therapeutic way to deal with all the disappointment.

“(It) helps me come to peace and makes me happy. (It) kind of gives you opportunities with all the time that we’ve got suddenly to do all the things you wish you had time to do before,” Breanna says.

She’s using her talent to help others in her neighborhood as well.

“We just started going in our circle, and then other people started coming and seeing what we were doing,” Breanna said. “We just kind of went through the neighborhood and did one on almost every driveway.”

She hopes the people who see their work will experience the same joy she does.

“We’re just going around helping people feel happy and bringing joy to their lives,” she says.

One of them is 6-year-old Ira Jones.

“He’s super cute and he brings joy to a lot of people in the neighborhood,” Breanna says. “I did Buzz (Lightyear) on his birthday, and he came out and he looked at it and he was screaming, ‘Buzz, Buzz!’”

Breanna is working on a new character for Ira.

“He really likes this tiger from Jungle Book. We just thought that he would enjoy it and I’m excited to see his reaction,” she says.

“Ira was born at 24 weeks. So he was born really early and he has lots of medical complications,” says Lindsey Jones, Ira’s mother.

He has chronic lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, cerebral palsy. He also has a tracheostomy and an incision in his neck for his ventilator he uses at night so he can breathe, she said.

Ira is used to social isolation. Even the slightest infection could make him very sick.

“In the wintertime, we do our own ‘stay home, stay safe.’ He doesn’t go to school. We don’t go to church. We don’t go to the zoo,” Lindsey says.

The chalk art is making his world brighter.

“The highlight of our day (is) to go on a walk and see these drawings,” she says. “It’s hard for him to do a lot of physical activity, and he sat on that little scooter and rode around the entire neighborhood and didn’t need me to push him until the very, very end.”

Lindsey says that little bit of chalk on pavement is, to them, an expression of love.

“Ira has helped us. Seeing his joy has helped all of us in the neighborhood and our family,” Lindsey said.

The chalk art creations bring hope and happiness “to infinity and beyond,” and the courage of a tiger for one little boy.

To see more of Breanna Jones’ art, visit @breanna.coolart on Instagram.