Mondays here at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers
are generally devoted to all things craft-related. Sometimes I post a craft
project, either one I’ve designed or from a guest. Other times I write about
craft-related topics. Such is the case today.
In Drop Dead Ornaments, the soon-to-be-released next installment of the Anastasia
Pollack Crafting Mysteries, author Lois Winston has me designing easy-to-make
glass ball ornaments. One of the projects I come up with uses melted crayons to
create a marbleized ornament. It’s a great way to use broken crayons.
I recently discovered that August is National Crayon Collection Month. Its mission is to ensure that every child has crayons as part of their school
supplies.
Many family restaurants hand out crayons along with
placemats to color to young diners to keep them occupied while waiting for
their meals. Most of the time these crayons are left on the table when the
family departs the restaurant. The restaurants wind up tossing the crayons in
the trash, but crayons don’t decompose. So all those discarded crayons, more
than 150 million of them every year, wind up in landfills. And most of them
have barely been used.
That’s a lot of crayons! 150 million crayons placed
end to end would span the United States three times! They could climb the Empire
State Building 30,175 times!
Sixteen million kids live in poverty and can’t afford
this basic school supply. Teachers annually spend nearly a thousand dollars of
their own money on supplies for their students due to art funding cuts to
school districts. So Sheila Michail Morovati, the founder of Crayon Collection,
came up with the idea of putting those discarded crayons to a much better use. Why
not collect all those gently used crayons and donate them?
You can help by asking your local kid-friendly
restaurants to save their used crayons. At the end of the month, collect them
from the restaurant, and donate them to your local schools. If you live in an
affluent community, donate the crayons to nearby Title 1 schools and Head Start
programs.
Help spread the word by using the hashtag
#GotCrayons on social media.
10 comments:
Great idea for a good cause. Thanks for spreading the word.
Thanks for stopping by, Judy!
A big "shout-out" to Shelia for initiating a great cause. And, thank you, Anastasia and Lois, for spreading the word.
Thanks, Angela!
Wow. Keeping stuff out of the waste stream and helping kids get school supplies. Talk about a win win. How do we donate?
Anne, click on the link in the blog post. All you have to do is make arrangements for your local restaurant to save the crayons instead of tossing them. At the end of the month you pick them up, then bring them to a local school or Head Start program.
What a great idea! I seldom eat out, but when I do, I'll look for crayons.
Thanks, Earl!
Thanks for sharing this bit of news. It ’s always a delight to stop by and learn something new!
Thanks for stopping by, Vivienne!
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