The Bolles Art Club, under the leadership of Emily Lekas ’21 and Natalie Garcia ’21, raised $222 for Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea, Florida.

The club sold beautifully designed stickers – 78 of them – in support of the nonprofit organization and public aquarium that provides marine life to schools and research laboratories.

Lekas said the club chose to support Gulf Specimen Marine Lab because it is an educational resource that means a lot to her and other club members.

“I have grown up visiting this lab near Alligator Point every year, sometimes twice a year, since I was born,” Lekas said. My experiences there have inspired me to pursue a PhD in marine biology.”

She said the lab displays the vast diversity of marine life from the Gulf of Mexico, including some of the stranger ones she finds “adorable and fascinating.” Such marine life inspired some of the designs in the club’s mural of fish and other sea creatures, which was installed on a Bent Center hallway wall last summer. The sickers, in fact, were designed after or directly from the mural.

Club members submitted designs using pictures of the mural or originals inspired by the mural and club leaders selected eight final designs. Leakas created the "Bolles" sticker using pictures from the mural and the rest were original designs by members including: Max Frohman, who made a circular turtle and walrus; Garcia, who designed the girl with the beanie hat; Ashvatha Arun, who designed the aquarium; Dalia Ibrahim, who made the yellow tang and clownfish; and Aylar Orasheva, who designed the two sharks and trout stickers.

Lekas presented a check from the club fundraiser to representatives of the marine lab on February 13.