YOUNGSTOWN — Gino Moffo has suffered his share of trauma, but hope and nature — along with a desire to reach out to others who have undergone a traumatic event — have placed him on the road to healing.

“I wasn’t trying to win, but what I wanted was to make someone’s day better,” Moffo, a freshman at Boardman High School, said. “I know hope plays a big role in stuff.”

An abundance of hope and nature were displayed in an untitled digital piece of artwork he submitted for the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office’s first Victim Services Art Contest, for which an awards reception took place Wednesday at the Mahoning County Courthouse.

Sixty pieces of art from area high school students were entered in the contest, themed “Hope and Healing,” Mahoning County Prosecutor Gina DeGenova said.

The contest was broken into two categories — one for freshmen and sophomores and another for juniors and seniors.

Moffo had to deal with trauma associated with having lost his home in a house fire, as well as being separated from his parents. Nevertheless, his art project, for which he received a second-place red ribbon and shows a serene setting with a tent, pine trees and campfire in nature, has helped him more effectively cope with tragedy.

In general, the project represents “a peaceful way to escape,” Moffo said, adding he hopes it also will benefit others impacted by tragedy and trauma.

His art will have the ability to do so because it will be among those hung on display in the Victim Services Office as a way to help others who are dealing with trauma and grief linked to being victims of crime.

Madason Morgan, a freshman at Jackson-Milton High School, used acrylic paint to make a piece of untitled art with a heavily spiritual element. Specifically, the first-place piece shows a large tree in the middle of a field of flowers, with a silhouette of Jesus Christ at the base of the tree.

“My grandmother was in the hospital and almost died,” she said.

Morgan, who hopes to be a psychologist, said she derives a sense of peace and tranquility from flowers, as well as placing her faith in an omnipotent, loving being. She, too, hopes her project will serve as more than an eye-appealing piece of art, that it also will aid and comfort others trying to cope with traumatic events such as testifying in court or having been injured by crime.

“I want this to create comfort for victims who come into our office,” DeGenova told a crowd of several dozen area teachers and others who filled the rotunda at the courthouse.

For many, having to face their perpetrators in court, being physically and emotionally wounded by crime and being made to testify can be the most traumatic series of events in their lives, said DeGenova, who announced the art contest idea earlier this year.

The prosecutor added she originally thought of a mural to achieve the same goal but wanted something that could take place annually and be open to more high school students.

“Art is the substance that gives everything in life meaning in a world that’s ever-changing,” Joyce Mistovich, the Butler Institute of Art’s education director, said.

The power of art also lies in its innate ability to help students make better qualitative judgments, allow young people to see that many problems have multiple solutions, realize small differences can have large effects, and, perhaps most importantly, provide a medium for them to express what is difficult or nearly impossible to say in words, Mistovich said.

Terri DeGennero, chairwoman of the HELMS Foundation, said art therapy can unleash in people what may be deeply suppressed. As a result, instances of abuse and trauma often are uncovered and then dealt with to help them heal, she said.

The type of therapy is far more than merely “paint and sip;” it often allows those suffering from damaging events to peel away the layers of trauma and pain, she said.

Perhaps Moffo most succinctly summed up what the Victim Services Art Contest meant to him.

“There is hope in everything around you,” he said.

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