By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

Carbon County got more colorful on Friday, June 13, as the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce welcomed Color Carbon County into the organization with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Author and illustrator Ashley Vincent took center stage at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which doubled as a celebration of her new children’s book, “Big John’s Secret to Being Big. ” The book features Helper’s famous miner statue in the titular role.

“Color Carbon County is a nonprofit located in Helper. Our goal is to bring opportunity for the local youth in art, whether it’s supplies, doing art clubs or local galleries for them,” said Vincent. “Our first project was a coloring book based on local businesses and hot spots, specifically in Helper. There’s going to be one for Price coming soon. I also recently released a children’s book. All proceeds from those will go directly toward what we’re doing.”

Speaking to Castle Country Radio, Vincent shared the creative process behind the books,” The idea came from when I worked at Helper Vibes. I was a kid’s activity coordinator, and they needed a project that had something to do with Helper. And so I created a couple of coloring pages, and I was, like, ‘You know what? This is actually a really good idea.’ It took me about a year to talk to all of the businesses and try to figure out what places I was going to put in the coloring book and actually draw those and then trying to figure out where I was going to get it printed and all of that, and it took a long time.”

She continued,” It feels surreal to see it come to a physical product, not just the coloring book but the children’s book as well.”

As for what comes next, Vincent shared,” I’m doing a coloring book for Price. I think I’m going to do Price and Wellington together just because Wellington’s so small. That should be coming in the fall of this year, so they can look out for that.

Following her remarks, Vincent connected scissors to ribbon and officially welcomed Color Carbon County into the CCCC.

More information on Color Carbon County is available online through the organization’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Copies of the coloring book and children’s book are available online through Etsy or in person at businesses along Helper Main Street.

Watch the ribbon-cutting here: