Paint the Town is an annual festivity of McHenry High School’s Homecoming Week. On September 28 and 29, students from various clubs and activities paint the windows of local businesses to spread school spirit throughout the McHenry community.

Student Activities Director Cara Vandermyde coordinates the event, and explains the purpose behind Paint the Town. “Paint the town is a long running homecoming tradition, where students in both athletics and activities can work with local businesses in order to try to raise spirit and get the community involved in our homecoming celebrations. So they go and they paint the local businesses,” explained Vandermyde. Paint the Town is a long running tradition dating back since the beginning of MCHS. This year, the administration’s goal is to get the community involved and bring back the traditions McHenry once had. Vandermyde explains, “There’s a big push this year to try to reclaim some history from past homecomings long before I worked here and the administrators went through old yearbooks and they found a bunch of really cool vintage homecoming photos and two are from they say 1987 on the painted window, and so you can see students from 1987 McHenry painting the town which is kind of cool.”

Paint the Town highlights local businesses while promoting MCHS clubs. Teacher and Student Council advisor Mrs. Stefanie Lukas explains the outcome of Paint the Town: “Paint the Town brings awareness to our local businesses and all of the really great things that we have right here in downtown McHenry. It also brings awareness to the school to let the community know that it’s homecoming and all of our great events that we have going on this week.”

A variety of clubs and organizations participate in this event, which means that a large number of students attend it. Paint the Town is an all-inclusive event that allows every student to participate. MCHS students gave their perspective on this event. Sophomore Grace Hunt states, “Being able to show everyone like this is my club this is my school this is what we’re doing you know being able to use our creative energy and kind of come out here together as a club and get excited for those amazing event coming up.”

Paint the Town has been an event since before the 1940s. For a tradition such as this to be kept and cherished for years shows how much MCHS cares about its history. Paint the Town builds a community and school culture while upholding MCHS history.