After learning to draw with drawing pictures of cartoons and jets, a 17-year-old has now literally made his mark on the Workforce Development Resource Center.

This participant in the Youth Opportunity Program spent about a month working on a design, then painting a mural on the wall of the WDRC youth lounge. His design features people in various lines of work from various cultural backgrounds on top of the sun, which is on top of the earth. The people in the design, he said, represent job opportunities and diversity. The different lines of work represent the choices that people have today when education meets opportunity. The earth stands for all the people on Earth, and the sun appearing above it signifies a new day coming, he said.

The mural was dedicated Monday.

Program coordinator Robert Pleasant said he approached the boy after someone showed him some of the work the boy had done.

"He was the obvious choice, and he did a great job," Pleasant said.

The young man said this was his first time doing a mural, and he hopes to turn his love for drawing and art into a profession, possibly doing cartooning or computer animation.

After this project, Pleasant said he hopes to pursue other projects that let the young people involved in the program express some of their other talents such as music.

"There's a lot of talent that these young people have, and I hope to give them avenues to express that talent like this young man has done," Pleasant said.

"He's interested in going to art school. We hope to break down barriers and do what we can do to see that his dreams come true."