Sometimes, big movements can be activated by the tiniest spark. In this case, it was a handful of restaurant crayons.
Bryan Ware was at dinner with his family in 2011 when he noticed his kids coloring with crayons that had been placed on the table for them. Ware wondered aloud what happened to the restaurant crayons once children were done with them; the waiter informed him that if the crayons were used at all, they were thrown away and replaced with new ones.
[seealso slug="feminist-coloring-book"]
Ware was stunned at such waste and the gears in his head began turning. Why not find a way to give those crayons to children who would love to have them?
And thus, The Crayon Initiative was born.
The Crayon Initiative organizes collections for unwanted crayons and remanufactures them for use in kids' hospitals, according to its website. With the help of volunteers, the organization sorts through donated crayons from schools and restaurants, grouping them by color.
The crayons are then melted down in large vats...
...Before being poured into specialized molds.
The molds are slightly larger than the average crayon, which makes them especially well-suited for young children or kids with special needs.
The results are lovely, shiny recycled crayons.
The crayons are then sent to various children's hospitals.
Ware says that The Crayon Initiative simply hopes to give the kids a mental respite from hospital life. “If these crayons give them an escape from that hospital room for ten minutes, we did our job," he said.