GULF SHORES, Ala. — What will you do to help your community?

Would you donate blood? Volunteer at a soup kitchen? Or let the season of giving pass by without a finger lifted for charity?

These pressing questions have been posed by students from Gulf Shores High School with a mural on display at the Cobb Theaters at The Pinnacle.

As moviegoers pass through the lobby on their way to see a flick they will get an ounce of realization about what needs to be done in the community and how to help.

With the release on Christmas of the new movie Valkyrie, the heroic spirit is stirring up and students in Amoreena Brewton’s AP U.S. History II class are challenging residents to be heroes.

The story of German soldiers who try to overthrow Adolf Hitler during World War II recounts the heroism of German army officers. Operation Valkyrie was the mission to assassinate Hitler.

“They were not successful in doing that,” Brewton said. “But it shows the world that this wasn’t left unchecked. We’ve heard a lot of people rescuing and liberating Holocaust prisoners, but we don’t often hear about the German military not being happy with Hitler either.”

Brewton said that in talking about these moments in history, an important question surfaced.

“Is there really such a thing as a bystander?” Brewton said was asked. “If you don’t help aren’t you a perpetrator to some degree?”

Students pondered whether people realize by not doing anything they are in actuality doing something.

“What level of guilt do you share if you allow things in your classroom, in your school, in your community to happen. If you let things happen, what level of responsibility do you have in that?” Brewton asked.

She said the students were proud to be a part of something that was bigger than themselves and those who produced the mural hoped to make a difference.

Brewton’s stepmother Peggi Brewton, who orchestrates the promotional sets at the Cobb Theaters, was the catalyst for the project.

“I had the kids brainstorm about how to make it ours,” Peggi Brewton said. “How are we bringing this from a global view down to something that we might do something about.”

The students collected information and gathered statistics, agency names and phone numbers, and what need was in either Gulf Shores, Baldwin County or Alabama then translated it to art.

The translation became a world mapped, with countries “stitched” together, and ways to lend a helping hand.

“The stitches connect the country and show that we are fixing the world,” Peggi Brewton said.

The mural will be on display at the Cobb Theater through the holidays.