Pictured from L-R: Morning (a.m.) officers—Christian Harris, Camron Crutcher, Tylan Ayers, Kaylen Ioia and Aven Tokar.
Near the start of the school year, SkillsUSA lead advisor and Cyber Security instructor Kala Jo Grice-Dobbins at Madison County Career Technology Center in Huntsville, Ala., started planning with the SkillsUSA officers for their service projects for the year. “This year, we stumbled upon the Crayon Initiative,” she says. “The program collects all kinds of new, used, broken and unwanted crayons, which are then melted into three-sided crayons for children in hospitals so they’re easy for them to grip and can’t roll off hospital trays.”
Grice-Dobbins initially challenged her students to each fill a shoebox full of broken and used crayons to participate in a pizza party in December. “I never thought it would get as big as it did,” she says. Students from the Cyber Security, Cosmetology, Law enforcement, Fire, Welding, Auto Mechanics and Auto Collision classrooms all participated in gathering crayons and promoting the project. “We had at least 45 students participate from Madison. They designed flyers, made boxes and reached out to the community. One student reached out to Staples who donated the cost of printing the flyers.”
It quickly turned into a district wide competition when the student resource officer (SRO) suggested involving every elementary school in the Madison County School District. He also asked us how big we wanted this project to be, to which we responded, “as big as we can get it!” He then told the class his plan to have a competition among all the SROs in the county.
“My daughter goes to one of the elementary schools and she said that kids would be running to the SRO’s office to drop off crayons. She said that anytime someone broke one they would make a bag for more. One student in kindergarten would put his head in the crayon bucket each day to measure how much they had gotten,” she says.
“Not only did it become a district wide thing, but our class had internal competitions as to who could bring in the most. We also managed to involve local companies, five local Walmart stores, daycares, local businesses and restaurants. “We even designed and made a 3-D printed trophy for the winning elementary school,” says Grice-Dobbins.
The collection of crayons was stored in the Cyber Security classroom, where boxes were stacked high. The project ended on Dec. 8 with an astounding 1,776.6 lbs. collected. According to the Crayon Initiative, this will allow more than 7,500 brand-new packs of crayons to be created and donated to children in more than 260 hospitals across the United States.
Local businesses donated pallets and the pallet wraps. The students made the pallets in the parking lot, where they were pleasantly surprised to find three local news stations asking for an interview. See the Channel 48 segment here.
“We could not be prouder of our turnout,” says Kaylen Ioia, SkillsUSA president of the Cyber Security morning class. “Our class is so extremely lucky and grateful for the overwhelming support for the project from our community.”
“The crayon drive showed me that communities can come together to help give back to a great cause,” says Melina Ramirez, SkillsUSA president of the Cyber Security afternoon class. “Without the community’s involvement, we would not have been able to successfully accomplish collecting this many crayons.”
The students who were involved really felt the impact of the project. “Participating in the crayon drive was a simple yet impactful way to make a difference,” says Michael Cosby. “The Crayon Drive did so well that our classroom smelled like crayons,” says Keyshaun Jordan. “It’s easy to help out for a good cause,” says Nehemiyah Stevens. “It was shocking to see how many crayons were donated. There were so many it covered more than half of our classroom,” says Camron Crutcher.
Three students will chronicle their community service efforts and submit them to the SkillsUSA Alabama State Leadership & Skills Conference competition. “If they win or if they don’t, I’m so proud of our efforts. It would be hard to imagine a more successful outcome than this,” says Grice-Dobbins.
