Penguin Young Readers is partnering once again with the Crayon Collection, a nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental consciousness and providing art education in underfunded schools, for the National “Letters for Change” program.
Announced on National Crayon Day, March 31, 2022, the new Letters for Change program, inspired by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers’s picture books The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home, will provide libraries and museums across the nation with a curriculum for children to write to first lady Jill Biden to end the discarding of gently used crayons at restaurants. This effort continues the Crayon Collection’s efforts to collect and upcycle the 150 million crayons that restaurants throw away each year.
The Letters for Change program extends the Penguin and Crayon Collection collaborations, which began in 2018 with the “These Crayons Won't Quit” campaign, and sent branded crayon collection boxes to restaurants to inspire them to collect and donate crayons. Since its inception in 2009, the Crayon Collection has collected more than 20 million crayons from restaurants across the country and donated them to Title I elementary schools or Head Start preschools.
Sheila Michail Morovati, founder of the Crayon Collection, said in a statement, “This will be a valuable experience for children because it gives them a chance to create change for something that is meaningful to them. Each kid volunteer we have ever worked with understands the wastefulness of throwing away still good crayons while so many children have no crayons of their own.”
The curriculum, which includes modified lessons for different ages, is available through April 22. To learn more or to join the campaign, click here.
