The Crayon Project
Goal: 1.5 million crayons
Collected: 200,000 crayons
Donated: 110,000 crayons
Crayons have been donated to the following:
- Public Schools
- Non-Profit Organizations
- Top-rated area hospitals including: The Valley Hospital, Hackensack University Medical Center
I wanted to update you on the exciting success the Crayon Project has achieved to date. An example is the Essex Vocational School in West Caldwell where people came in off the street with boxes of crayons because of the Crayon Project sign in front of the school. They intended to collect 3,000 crayons and finished with almost 15,000. The donation ceremony was at a luncheon prepared by the students followed by speeches from two Holocaust survivors.
The Frenchtown School 8th Grade students in Kingwood composed heartrending biographies of children murdered during the Holocaust.
The Caldwell and West Caldwell Public Libraries partnered with the Boy Scouts and numerous community churches and nursery schools built and set up a dozen crayon collection bins throughout their towns. This was done in conjunction with “The Big Read” program, an initiative of the National Endowment For The Arts.
A common thread in these programs is that they have gotten the students to participate in bringing their meaning to the subject, rather than just absorb information given by their teachers. Though most of the students did not have ancestors in the Holocaust, they made the connection to contemporary intolerance and genocide.
Because of media recognition we have received donations from places as distant as Colorado. McGuire Air Force Base is running a collection program through the summer. The Crayon Project began with the purpose of educating our Hebrew School students learn about tsedakah by giving to the less fortunate while memorializing the 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust. The support of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education has given it a much greater purpose by educating all children about the evils of intolerance.
Please send your new boxes or new individual crayons to:
The Fair Lawn Jewish Center
10-10 Norma Avenue
Fair Lawn, NJ 07410
Contact Person: Flora Frank
(201) 796-3995
The Crayon Project In the News
Below are links to articles about the Crayon Project that have been in the news lately:- Crayon Project Reaches the Next Level (Jewish Standard)
- Crayons and Buttons: The New 'Paper Clips' (The Jewish Week)
- Children collect crayons to learn about Holocaust (Catholic Online)
- WEST CALDWELL STUDENTS COLLECT CRAYONS FOR CHARITY TO HONOR CHILDREN WHO DIED FROM GENOCIDE (Essextech.org)
- Synagogue plans multi-colored Holocaust memorial (The Jewish Standard)