Crayon Collection

Habits of Waste program - this program focuses on changing habitual behaviors of the masses that are negatively impacting the environment. In this program the organization endeavors to put pressure on corporations and legislature to create lasting change needed to protect our planet. For example, the organization has, in the past, convinced the four major food delivery apps grubhub, ubereats, postmates and doordash to change their default setting to provide plastic cutlery only upon request. Additionally, they have worked with chain restaurants such as chipotle, mcdonalds, wendys, and burger king to install an opt-in for single-use plastic cutlery and accessories feature on their applications and in their restaurants to provide users with items by request only thereby eliminating much unnecessary Waste. In 2023, it was reported that Habits of Waste prevented over 1 billion pieces of plastic from entering the Waste stream and certain delivery companies reported they saved as many as 160 million cutlery packets from being distributed.

Crayon recycling program - the Crayon recycling program provides a sustainable environmental solution to restaurants and hotels that offer free crayons to children when they dine. Instead of throwing these crayons away after each meal, often after a single use, the organization establishes a Collection process for each location and ensures these gently used crayons are donated to a local school in need of supplies. The organization pairs the schools with the restaurants. In 2023, it was reported that since inception over 22 million crayons were redirected from landfill and donated to school partners and over 2 million children were served.

Arts education program - also known as the Crayon Collection program, this program seeks to reinfuse art education in schools around the nation. The organization does this by investing resources to support an artist inspired education series and an artist rotation initiative. Our arts in education program is designed to supplement the free crayons we donate to head start centers, title 1 elementary schools and after school programs and ensure access to free, standards-based, best in class art education resources for our classroom partners. Working together with teachers we have 16 artist inspired projects on our roster and each project meets or exceeds common core standards as well as social emotional learning. This year we expanded our reach by converting all our lesson plans to spanish and celebrated our 10th anniversary. The artist inspired education series engages local artists in developing instructional strategies that are uniquely designed for children working with our reallocated crayons, while complying with national and state standards for the visual arts.