Watch NZH Local Focus: Huge new attraction in Paeroa

It's only taken three days for an empty 350 square metre wall around the back of Liquor King, Paeroa to be transformed from a blank canvas into a local masterpiece - with the ideas coming from kids.

Eleven-year-old Charli Gage-Emery says it was a collective brainstorming effort where the children sat on the hill opposite the wall and envisaged their ideas.

"We had this elective art thing at school and we went down to the care house and we did all sorts of pictures and they're all stuck together and it became basically our pepeha," Charli Gage-Emery says.

The mural tells the story of Hauraki past, present and future - the issues and stories that are important for the children and the community.

The children's ideas were brought to life by Max Levi-Frieder, an artist based in New York who travels the world with Artolution - an international organisation that helps communities create public artwork.

"They came up with the idea about the mountain and how sacred the mountain is and there's also an entire conversation about how people are trying to mine this mountain and how important it is to the kids and also to the community that this is a sacred mountain and that it's really important to talk about conservation," Mr Levi-Frieder says.

For Hauraki local Glenys Te Moananui it's culturally significant and a visual interpretation of the issues the community is experiencing.

"This is me, this is our whenua, this is our history - all the kids that participated, and this is their history, this is us, our tupuna is up there too."

Melanie Budge is the manager of the Paeroa Children's Carehouse. She organised this art project and several other murals in Paeroa. She's hoping they will attract people to the area and give Paeroa some vibrancy.

"When we get these murals done we can do a map for tourists who come, or people that come to see the beauty of youth art in public places. So we'd like to put out a little pamphlet or get an app together and the visitors can walk around as well as bike," Mrs Budge says.

It's the second time a mural has been on the back of the Liquor King Store.

Manager Dave Craig hopes it will be a deterrent for taggers who frequently marked the building.

"It was fairly rapid and we found that once the original mural was on there we never got touched at all. So it was great. It served its purpose for us. It saves us having to go out there and repaint the wall every five minutes," Mr Craig says.

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