Crayon Collection

Crayon Collection has donated over 20 million crayons into vulnerable schools along with access to free Art Education lesson plans.Created by professional artists and using crayons as the main tool, these lesson plans teach vulnerable students STEM, literacy and social emotional learning connections through engaging art projects. With your support, Crayon Collection will add 14 new lesson plans, translate all lesson plans into Spanish and Chinese and provide the materials for volunteers to make crayon donations to an additional 5,000 students.

Our Arts in Education program provides free, artist inspired lesson plans formatted by volunteer educators to teach common core standards. Art in education has been shown to help with comprehension of STEM and literacy concepts and offers students an outlet to process trauma and develop self-discipline, self-management, and interpersonal relationship skills. For kids in underfunded communities with limited resources, we use art to facilitate student growth, increasing the chances of participants graduating and pursuing further education.

We are requesting support for the creation of a multi-lingual communications campaign to inform and reassure Angeleno’s that their tap water is accessible, clean and safe to drink. On 5/17/20, Mayor Garcetti said “If you live in the city of Los Angeles, Department of Water and Power water is, ... is actually cleaner than bottled water and is clean today.” Due to years of beverage company marketing campaigns, Angeleno’s have come to fear their drinking water. Repeated education and information is necessary to change these perceptions.

Our after-school program would serve Title 1 schools in LAUSD. Many children do not have access to after school care. We seek to implement Crayon Collection teachers inside the schools to work on creating PLAY with the would-have-been-trashed crayons we have collected from local LA restaurants to benefit vulnerable students in Los Angeles. The projects we offer students are created in partnership with professional artists offering deep learning experiences that are fun and developmentally rich.

Our #LAGREENTEEN program teaches inner-city Angeleno youth about environmentalism and reduction of single-use plastics through a 4 part workshop. LA HIGH is the first school we are working with (March & April 2019). We seek to install clean water filtration units throughout LA High school and plan to repeat this with other LAUSD schools as well. Without these units students are forced to buy plastic water bottles as their source of water as their school water is unsafe to drink.

Every child deserves a crayon. Crayon Collection aims to reduce waste in landfills by collecting gently used crayons that never decompose and distributing them to the kids that need them the most.