A Memory Box Honoring Rescue Squad Volunteers and the Lakeside Community

by Charles McGuigan 09.2022

Nico Cathcart brings her unique talent to the Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad with a massive mural that contains scores of individual elements nestled among hundreds of flowers, all of which celebrate the selfless volunteers of the squad, as well as the surrounding neighborhood of Lakeside. This mural, which was a community effort, should be completed by late September.

Meryl Butler, who headed up the mural committee for the squad, says that after an exhaustive search, the committee chose Nico to create the mural. “The committee voted on who captured the spirit of what we were trying to achieve the best, and that was Nico,” says Meryl. “It was very important for us to not only celebrate our EMS community but also the community at large that does support us.”  This local community of Lakeside—a sort of modern-day Mayberry—is responsible for about 85 percent of the Rescue Squad’s funding.

The idea for a mural on the building actually started back in 2020 when Lauren Diaz was president of the Rescue Squad. A local artist reached out to Lauren on social media and told her he was looking for a wall along Lakeside Avenue on which to create a mural. “His terms were pretty tight and ultimately the membership did not feel his vision was appropriate for our wall,” Lauren, who’s standing next to Meryl, tells me. “They felt like it did not involve the community enough. But we did want a mural up on the wall to let people know who we are and that we do care very much about our neighbors.”  While still president, Lauren appointed Meryl to chair the mural committee.

After a long search, Nico Cathcart was selected. “Her vision was the one that captured our attention and hearts the most,” Meryl says. 

And the mural, in the future, will actually help raise funds for this extraordinary group made up solely of volunteers. “Through what Nico has designed for us we can continue a campaign going forward,” says Meryl. “Our future goal is to start a hashtag LVRS campaign where you can do a seek-and-find and look for all the community elements that are present, and capture a picture and tag Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad in it. A lot of local businesses and some of the local trivia have been included in this mural.”

To encompass the full scope and diversity of the Lakeside community, Nico gathered scores of items that serve as models for the different elements within the mural.  

“When I says it’s a community effort, it really is,” says Nico. “The whole project was kind of put together like a memory box. I kind of pulled all this together so it’s literally like parts of Lakeside on this very public wall. It’s a very complex piece with many small items.”

And as a backdrop to all these items are hundreds of flowers of various species, flowers donated by another Lakeside neighbor—just a hefty stone’s throw from the Rescue Squad—Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. “They actually let me go pick them right from the garden,” Nico says.

As I’ve watched it take shape, I can see it as an act of love for Lakeside, and the 40 volunteers of the Rescue Squad who literally give life to the community they serve. 

“The slogan here (at the Rescue Squad) is, “Neighbors helping neighbors’,” says Nico Cathcart. “And I think that encompasses the neighborhood itself, as well as the Squad which is full of amazing humans.”