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Sunday, August 5, 2018

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--HELP SUPPORT NATIONAL CRAYON COLLECTION MONTH

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:

judyalter said...

Great idea for a good cause. Thanks for spreading the word.

ANASTASIA POLLACK said...

Thanks for stopping by, Judy!

Angela Adams said...

A big "shout-out" to Shelia for initiating a great cause. And, thank you, Anastasia and Lois, for spreading the word.

ANASTASIA POLLACK said...

Thanks, Angela!

Anne Louise Bannon said...

Wow. Keeping stuff out of the waste stream and helping kids get school supplies. Talk about a win win. How do we donate?

ANASTASIA POLLACK said...

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.

Earl Staggs said...

What a great idea! I seldom eat out, but when I do, I'll look for crayons.

ANASTASIA POLLACK said...

Thanks, Earl!

http://mypalbuddee.blogspot.com/ said...

Thanks for sharing this bit of news. It ’s always a delight to stop by and learn something new!

ANASTASIA POLLACK said...

Thanks for stopping by, Vivienne!