Gia Mickle, 7, looks for the perfect pocket to slip in one of her art pieces during a trip to Arizona Trading Co., 736 Massachusetts St., on Thursday, March 23, 2017. Mickle, aka Foxie, is one of several young artists taking part in this week's Guerrilla

Gyselle Perez is a star, and she knows it. On Thursday afternoon, the 9-year-old took to the streets of downtown Lawrence to let everyone else know, too.

She delivered her message — that “every girl gets to be a Star Girl,” referencing her own confident, astronomy-loving art persona — covertly, slipping bits of paper emblazoned with her doodles into clothing pockets at Arizona Trading Co. and between the pages of books at the Lawrence Public Library.

Perez hopes her art will make people smile. She also hopes it will empower whoever finds it to create their own. “Every kid can do art,” Perez says.

That, in a nutshell, is the premise behind the Lawrence Arts Center’s “Guerrilla Art” spring break camp for elementary students. Now in its fifth year, the weeklong workshop teaches kids about guerrilla art — leaving behind anonymous, ephemeral pieces of art in public places.

“It isn’t just art for funsies,” explains Landon Noll, a performing arts teacher at the camp. “It’s art with a message of social justice.”

Over the last four days, Noll and his fellow Arts Center staffers have been working with kids to craft their own messages, which have ranged from calls to protect animal rights and improve oral hygiene to simple reminders about self-love and the Golden Rule.

On Tuesday, campers installed a pop-up gallery outside U.S. Bank at the corner of Ninth and Massachusetts streets, and also performed for unsuspecting passersby at South Park. On Thursday, while sticking their handmade magnets onto downtown parking meters and other metal surfaces, the kids also left behind art at Arizona Trading Co. and the library, where they finished off their mission with an impromptu musical performance.

Neal Barbour, director of youth education at the Lawrence Arts Center, says he looks forward to the camp every year. For him, each cycle arrives with the challenge to “create visibility in this small town in new ways,” Barbour says. A key component of the guerrilla art camp, he adds, is helping kids develop a sense of community.

As adults, he says, it’s easy to become disillusioned with the world and our ability to create change in a vast social and political system. That’s not the case with children, Barbour says, and he feels it’s his job as an educator to help them find their voices — and use them for the greater good.

“I think there’s a purity within a kid’s perspective of what’s possible, and they haven’t been beaten down, and they haven’t been told it won’t work,” Barbour says, adding, “It’s that’s simple. They can change the world, and why wouldn’t they be able to?”

Throughout the week, campers have also created their own guerrilla artist personas, making up names with which to sign their artwork. Arts Center staffers photographed each student as his or her alter ego, complete with disguises such as hats, sunglasses and masks. Guerrilla artists are supposed to be anonymous, after all.

Ian Bravo-Lowell, 6, likes to call himself Billy Elliot, after the movie and stage musical about a ballet-loving boy in English coal-mining country who pursues his dreams despite familial and societal pressures. Bravo-Lowell says he chose the name because he enjoyed a recent production of “Billy Elliot” at the Arts Center.

He hopes his art, emblazoned with the small but mighty “Pokemon” character Pikachu, will serve as a reminder to be kind. That includes standing up for yourself and others in the face of “bad guys” and injustice, he says.

“Pikachu’s telling you to be powerful, because he’s powerful,” Bravo-Lowell says. “Nice and powerful.”