Recycled Art Supplies Proposal - Recycled Art Supplies

Proposal for Fiscal Sponsorship

Mission

Recycled Art Supplies help students who want to create art by providing the materials they would need for free.

If you are a low income or your location prohibits materials from reaching you and you live in San Bernardino and Riverside County. Our job is to collect gently used or new art supplies and then redistribute them to those who could use them.

This project was created to provide Free Gently Used and New Art Supplies to low-income art students in order to facilitate future creative minds.

Have you ever taken an art class, purchased the supplies and then decided it was not for you? This is where you can donate those art supplies to someone who can use them.

Twice a year at the beginning of the traditional school semesters in August and in February we aim to have drop off/ distribution places and volunteers to package up and send the materials to the art students who need them.

About

Recycled Art Supplies project came about after the pandemic exposed that students were unable to participate in art activities or programs due to a lack of materials.

Teachers found their students without paper and pencils let alone crayons, paints, or art supplies.

After the first Recycled Art Supplies Drive, we collected over a thousand dollars’ worth of art supplies donations and were able to distribute these supplies to various schools throughout San Bernardino County.

The Recycled Art Supplies seeks to help their community through providing free access to visual arts in order to encourage future creative minds.

The Case for Recycled Art Supplies

The project is called Recycled Art Supplies. We would collect art supplies people no longer use and redistribute them to art students who could use them. Our plan is to facilitate these supplies for low-income art students from kindergarten through college level. We would be recycling these art supplies to give away to school’s art programs, after school art programs, students who are rurally disadvantaged, and low-income art students within San Bernardino County and Riverside Counties.

We plan on having the distribution of the art supplies happen as an event twice a year to coincide with the beginning of the Fall and Spring terms for most schools. The Fall date would take place in September with planning beginning in August. The second event would take place in February with planning taking place starting in January. Advanced marketing would take place and people in need would sign up for the supplies. We would have a relationship with the local stores which sell art supplies and request they donate for this event. Depending on the ratio of the supplies donated to the people who need the supplies would determine how many or who would get the supplies. This way we can organize the disbursement according to need and availability.

There will be three sanctions of groups to ensure organized dispersal of the art materials. First would be the acceptors, the group of volunteer businesses and the Artlands who would host a box for art supplies to be donated. The second group would be the sorters and sanitizers. This group because of Covid 19, would sanitize the supplies the best they could. They would be the group which would separate the items which could not be used and had to be recycled properly (a service included in the art material exchange), they would then divide the items according to type in bins. There will be a separate section for new materials to be disbursed equally among the used supplies. The final sanctioned group would be the disbursement group. They would volunteer their time on the day of the pick up. They would also volunteer for the packing and shipping of the items allotted for those who are located too far away for the event and transportation may be an issue. The funds would be used for organizing materials, marketing materials, online marketing, website, and packing and shipping supplies. Our hope is that the cost of the materials will be low and we would dedicate our efforts to reach as many as possible who want to donate and who are in need. All time spent working will be volunteer based. We would hope to have art advocates, art students, and art professionals to volunteer their time for these events.

Needs Statement

As artists, we know firsthand the struggles that come with the cost of art materials, supplies, and course fees. Artists and art students of all ages struggle to get access to the supplies they may need or want in order to take a class. We want everyone to be able to have access to supplies and materials so that they can channel the artist within themselves. Art is therapeutic and can be an outlet for those who use it. Maybe the first grader does not realize it but being able to draw or paint and express themselves is sculpting who they are.

Access to the arts is important for many reasons. Arts education helps understanding with creative problem solving, cultural understanding, historical context, and so much more that is essential for each person. The arts, “are the “repository of human wisdom” (Fowler, 1996,p. 4), and have the power to span the cultural divides that threaten peace all over the globe,” (Bauguil, Marie-Hélène, 1). You could say that arts help with social justice which is defined as “philosophy, an approach, and actions that embody treating all people with fairness, respect, dignity, and generosity,” (Nieto, Bode,7). A growing body of literature highlights the significant benefits of arts education on student outcomes. Students who participated in arts programs fared better academically, emotionally, and socially (Burton, Horowitz & Abeles, 1999; Duma, 2014; Fiske, 1999; Catterall, Dumais & Hamden-Thompson, 2012; Heath, Soep & Roach, 1998; Peppler,Powell, Thompson & Catterall, 2014)” consistently throughout their K-12 grades “than those who did not,” ,” (Bauguil, Marie-Hélène, 1).

For this project, we want to give access to art supplies that some people do not have, and we want people to be creative and be expressive without having to worry about how much supplies are going to cost or where to get them. In San Bernardino County there are approximately 2,194,710 people and of that number approximately 14.3 percent are in poverty. That is nearly 313,843 people in our county who are in poverty. 570,624 people are under the age of 18 and could use these art supplies to participate in an art class (U.S. Census Bureau). That is why we are asking for help in making the Recycled Art Supplies come true. We want to offer these donated art supplies to not just low-income students but students who do not have access to art stores. Most of the time these two go hand in hand. We just want to make sure that there is a fair opportunity among everyone to experience the joy of the arts.

According to data from Create California, California’s statewide arts education coalition, from the 2018 to 2019 school year, it shows that only twenty six percent of students have access to all four disciplines of art education in Junior High and High School. This includes access to music, visual arts, theater, and dance classes. Only forty percent of all secondary school aged students are enrolled in an art class in the state of California. Seventeen percent of those students are enrolled in visual arts, fourteen percent are enrolled in music, theater is four percent, and dance is two percent. In San Bernardino County, there are only 73,288 students enrolled in an arts class for the entire county; that means that only thirty seven percent of the students are enrolled in art (“Arts Education Data Project.”). In low-income schools with high levels of reduced lunch students in attendance, there are only about twenty one percent of those students attending classes in arts, (“Arts Education Data Project.”). The goal of the Recycled Art Supplies is to increase access to art classes by removing the barrier of cost to the students.

The need for art supplies varies by grade. High school and college students are more likely to need art supplies for a class whereas elementary and middle schoolers are more likely to need art supplies as a collective class. College course art supplies can usually total around $300 per semester. Art teachers in middle and high school can charge up to this amount for their students as a lab fee to participate in the class each school year. If you are taking courses privately, course fees and supplies can exceed this amount. If you are a low-income student, $300 is not a small amount. You can pay for quite a few essential things with $300. While some art teachers are nice and do not require specific brands, some do. From experience we can say that when an art teacher asks for specific brands it is never the most inexpensive. The most ironic part about having to put out all this money for supplies is that a lot of the time it is for introductory or elective classes. Those supplies you buy for those introductory or one-time courses, are supplies you may never use again. This is one of the main reasons for this project.

According to a Yale News article, an art student “[Rahshemah] Wise has spent hundreds of dollars on course fees, materials, and computer programs as part of her introductory art classes” (Kristoffersen and Wei). In a Kent State newspaper article it states, “You’re always required to buy supplies for intro classes, which is really tough because a lot of those classes you never use again…I have all of these supplies that I never use,” (Kamczyc). That is hundreds of dollars they will never be able to get back and an excess of supplies they may never use again. Not to mention, both these quoted statements have come from students themselves. The individuals who have to deal with the direct impact of excessive art supply costs. Later on in the same Yale News article it stated, “Art supplies can cost more than textbooks because they are consumable – students can’t buy secondhand paint or sketchbooks the same way they can buy used textbooks” (Kristoffersen and Wei). This is a reality every year for art students when they have to buy new supplies over and over. There are not many opportunities available to receive used art materials at little to no cost. That is the whole purpose behind this project. To give people that access to supplies that they have not had access to before.

Whether you can afford to spend $300 or not, you most often won’t be able to find these art supplies at just any store. You would need to go to art stores to purchase them. However, art stores are not always in close proximity to those who want or need to go to them. Students located in San Bernardino County understand this limitation more than anyone. With the land mass of San Bernardino County spanning 20,068 square miles. This is the largest county in the United States. Most of these stores are located south of the San Gorgonio Mountain and Mount San Antonio. This leaves a huge land span without ease of access to these art materials. They would have to purchase these materials online, which can be costly for shipping. If students are low income and they would like to take an art class online or in person, these students would be burdened with the cost of the materials and the cost of shipping on top of that.

The goal is to be able to accommodate everyone and that they should be able to experience what it’s like to have art in their lives. No matter what the circumstances are. There are communities of people out there that do not have access to things like art supplies. We want to help stop that. Schools and individuals need our help to produce more creative spaces at home or in the classroom. If that means taking in donations of all kinds of art supplies and sending out boxes one by one, then that is what we will do.

Goals and Objectives

With Recycled Art Supplies (RAS), our goal is to provide low-income art students from kindergarten to college level access to artist materials and supplies free of charge. We aim to decrease the struggles of artists not having enough disposable income to pay for art supplies or the lack thereof. We seek to implement this by creating individual “supply crates” or boxes that will contain a variety of art supplies in new or used condition. Individually, these crates will be shipped out to applicants during the spring and fall before their semesters begin, or be available for pick up at a disbursement event.

By providing free art supplies to students and art teachers, we hope it will decrease the number of stress students, teachers and artists face combined with the cost of tuition, fees, and living when they are unable to get quality art supplies they need for their courses and projects. We anticipate artists will be able to create art without having distress of financial troubles and the lack of art stores so they can flourish and be able to express themselves freely.

B. Objectives

1. Provide low-income students with free art supplies new or used from art supply donations.

2. Meet with volunteers for team building and work experience through collaboration, teamwork, through assembling, organizing, sanitizing, and preparing art kits before they are mailed out to applicants. They would also be responsible for helping with the disbursement events.

3. Allow students to apply for volunteer hours who are in high school who need a certain number of hours required to graduate from high school.

4. Host bi- annual disbursement events available during the spring and fall semester, allowing art students, and adults to participate, whether if they would like to be a volunteer, or apply to receive an art kit.

Methodology

To achieve our project’s goal, RAS will start by accepting continuous gently used or new art supplies at the Artlands and other participating businesses within San Bernardino County. Then twice a year host distribution events at local community centers or at business locations in the San Bernardino County area in the spring and fall. The location of the events will take place in the first weeks of August and the Spring in the first weeks of January at community /event centers, or schools in San Bernardino County. To assist in distributing free art supplies to students throughout San Bernardino County, the art supplies may be divided equally throughout the County, and these events will take place in more than one location. The events will be announced through social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and advertised through school bulletin boards through announcements and flyers.

Visitors and interested applicants will be able to receive more information on event details, location and time through the organization’s website ReccycledArtSupplies.org or their Social Media platforms and will be linked to a form where they can either apply as a volunteer, donor or apply to receive an art crate. For volunteers, there is no age limit as children, teens, adults, and elders can partake in the event as long as children are accompanied by a guardian. For donors, they will specify what they will be donating in the form as well as their names. Finally, people who applied for an art supply crate will specify the reason why they require supplies, and the type of supplies they require.

The event will be hosted by our leaders in the Recycled Art Supplies. Volunteers and donors will be briefed on the process. First, volunteers will be assigned to workstations where there will be tables and bins laid out for them. Next volunteers will sort each supply based on categories such as paint, crayons, pencils, etc. It’s after 1 hour of organization, volunteers and donors will be given an hour break where food and refreshment, as well as program information, will be provided for anyone interested in applying for RAS. Once the break is over, regular procedures will continue until the event has ended. Volunteers will also participate in cleaning up space, storing supply bins to be transported back to RAS home in the San Bernardino Area. Donors and volunteers will receive stickers to commemorate their contributed effort in helping RAS.

The second phase will take place the week after donations have been met. Returning volunteers or new ones can apply in the sorting packaging process. These positions will be divided into three groups, one responsible for sorting the supply crates based on the recipients requests, the second group will be responsible for assembling the boxes that will be used to organize and ship the items, finally, the third group will handle shipping and handling by taping and labeling each crate appropriately for delivery. Similar to the first event, refreshments, and food will be available to volunteers and members.

The third phase of the RAS will be when we host the distribution events at either a business location or a community center or school. This is where the volunteers will set up art demonstrations and pass out the art supplies to the students who have applied for the art supplies. For the students who cannot make it to the distribution events, the crates of art supplies will be shipped out to them. Before the boxes are shipped out, each box will be recounted to make sure all crates have been made. After these measures are taken, the crates will be shipped out individually through USPS, and members will be emailed a tracking number for their art crate. By issuing these art crates, we hope that it will lessen the struggles of having the lack of supplies to create works of art freely without having to worry about the stress of income as well as paying for online courses and bills to sustain their living situations. After this process has been finished, volunteers and members will be congratulated for their efforts with a t-shirt that has the RAS logo.

Impact so Far

In the first art drive in January 2021, Recycled Art Supplies supplied some of students in the Adelanto Elementary School District and other students in the surrounding southern California area with a thousand dollars’ worth of art supplies that was donated to the RAS. This was able to aid students in the afterschool programs as well as students in the surrounding area to be able to participate in arts programs.

Donations

At the moment, the Recycled Art Supplies will accept art supplies at the Artlands at 18 E Vine St, Redlands, CA 92373

A Donation in kind form needs to be filled out from the donors.

Efforts for more locations will be made throughout San Bernardino County.

Possible donation boxes can be left at various locations with information about RAS
New Art Supply kits can be purchased for students using an online ordering system.

Volunteers

Volunteers would sign up through the RecycledartSupplies.org website and sign a waiver for liability. There is no age limit as long as parent permission is given, or they are accompanied by a parent. For students wanting volunteer credit, an official of RAS would fill out the form.

Officials in RAS will meet monthly to discuss planning and grant/fundraising ideas/ or events

Relationship with The Artlands

The Recycled Art Supplies will team up with the Artlands and communicate often about possible grants to apply for so there is no confusion or competition. Meeting with them often to let them know of the progress of RAS.

Budget

Purpose	Amount
Volunteers Payment	$0 all time will be donated
Marketing Ads	$150
Marketing Stickers	$ 36
Postcards plus postage	$70
Volunteer shirts (x 25)	$210
Website	$60
Community center rental John Swisher Community Center at Hesperia Lake 120people max 7500 Arrowhead Lake Road	$105 for a 3-hour event
Flat Rate shipping boxes (x 200)	$0 (when ordered online)
Packing Paper (x 2 Rolls)	$56
Packing Tape (x 2 Packs of 6 rolls)	$42
+Shipping small flat rate shipping boxes per box $10.40	$260 for 25 boxes shipped

Total costs for Startup and events/shipping

$989

Funding

A development team will be formed to discuss possible grant opportunities to help aid in either the art supplies, shipping costs and materials, marketing, or facilitation uses.

Contact with the Artlands about these grants will be made so these grants do not conflict with the grants from the Artlands.

Sponsors-

Businesses will be contacted with packages for assisting the RAS.

Having their logo on the back of t-shirts for the disbursement events.
Purchasing a large print of art contest winner’s student artwork to be displayed in their place of business.

500 gives you a large 40 by 30 inch Acrylic Print with plaque
- Logo on event t-shirts
- Logo and link on the Recycled Art Supplies website
- 100 gives you a poster of artwork 24 by 36 inches
  - Logo and link on the Recycled Art Supplies website

Future Growth

In order to continue access to the arts, RAS, would like the possibility of taking on workshops with students which may include mural workshops, printmaking, painting, or drawing workshops. These would be free to students and all art supplies would be provided.

Art Contests –

Art to be displayed on T shirts for events
Art to be created into large prints for purchase to help supply funds to RAS
Winners announced on the local radio stations

Resources

“Arts Education Data Project.” CreateCA, CreateCA, 2021, www.createca.dreamhosters.com/interactive-dashboard/. 05 April 2021.

Bauguil, Marie-Hélène. Examining the Role of Arts Education Partnerships in Sustaining Arts Programs in California Elementary Schools (2017). Web.

U.S. Census Bureau quickfacts: United States. U.S. Census Bureau . (2020). Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/IPE120221

Kamczyc, Alex. “The Cost of Art: Supplies Make Fine Arts an Expensive Major.” KentWired.com, 13 Apr. 2017, www.kentwired.com/entertainment/article_2ba2a81e-1f27-11e7-ac0d-2b30b431aee8.html.

Kristoffersen, Matt, and Kelly Wei. Low-Income Art Students Struggle to Pay Course Fees. 24 Jan. 2020, yaledailynews.com/blog/2020/01/24/low-income-art-students-struggle-to-pay-course-fees/.

Nieto, Bode, and Bode, Patty. Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education. 7th ed. New York: Pearson, 2018. Print.