New mural part of Renton program to battle graffiti

Published 10:10 am Tuesday, October 21, 2025

One of the first murals created with the help of Renton’s Paint with Purpose Initiative is part of a plan to help beautify the city.

The Paint with Purpose Initiative connected Benson Bruins Junior Football Association with Rick Moreno of Wow Murals to allow him to create a two-piece mural at the association’s sheds near SE 168th Street and 116th Avenue SE.

The program began earlier this year as a way for property owners to find artists willing to add murals to graffiti-prone areas. Renton Economic Development Manager Jessie Kotarski said it is considered a graffiti-abatement program.

“This is our attempt to combat graffiti with a positive solution,” Kotarski said. “So our hope here is to provide an opportunity for public art by working with property owners and local artists to create partnerships.”

Moreno said he was contacted by Benson Bruins Junior Football Association and began working on a design.

“We discussed what their vision was, what they wanted to do. After some iterations, some designs and limitations of what the city will allow, we went from that,” Moreno said. “We just wanted to creatively integrate it into what was once a very sterile eyesore of sorts.”

The mural is located on two shipping containers at the location. One of the murals retained the “BJF” initials and added a “large, menacing bruin” on one side and a football play on the other.

“I wanted to maintain the integrity of (the initials), only give it a facelift,” Moreno said. “The trick was to come up with a design that didn’t have any word description, but immediately resonated with what they’re about.”

The larger of the containers features a heartbeat line splitting a black and gold background with the four silhouettes of two football players, a cheerleader and coach. One of the players wears 77 to represent the founding year of Benson Bruins Junior Football, while the other wears 28, representing former player Amarr Murphy-Paine. Murphy-Paine was a 17-year-old student killed while trying to break up a fight at Garfield High School in Seattle in June 2024.

“They wanted to honor him in this design,” Moreno said. “That side identifies the heartbeat of their community and this program.”

Moreno said the site was a target for tagging and the hope is the mural will dissuade that behavior. He also said he applied an “anti-graffiti” coating to the mural to make it easier to remove tags in the future without harming the original mural. He said he has received “enthusiastic appreciation” from the community for the mural.

Moreno said he has painted more than 350 murals in his 25 years of painting, including the Bruce Lee mural on South Third Street and the “I Heart Renton” mural across from the piazza. Moreno said the Paint with a Purpose program is fantastic and he highly encourages any artists to participate.

“The intent behind it, the beautification of the community through art, speaks volumes,” Moreno said. “It’s something a lot of people can get behind. It builds civic pride in a way.”

Kotarski said murals help create pride in a place.

“People come, travel to find murals,” Kotarski said. “It’s also a nice indicator that this is a space that the community has pride in and is willing to put art into. Art is always a great opportunity to show your community is thriving. Whenever artists are, you tend to have a lot of community and a lot of culture and a lot of people who are investing in their space and in their public areas.”

Kotarski said the program is not just limited to businesses.

“If you are in a neighborhood that’s like, ‘I’ve got this wall that I drive by every day or I’ve got this fence line every day that is constantly tagged and I think this is a great candidate,’ then we’d like to do that too,” Kotarski said.

Interest forms and the full guidelines for the initiative can be found on the Creative Economy landing page on the city’s website.