LuAnn Foty, more commonly called, the Crazy Crayon Lady, located in northern Wisconsin, is working hard to help the Earth, one crayon at a time. Recycling and caring for the Earth, for our kids'sake, has been a long time passion of hers. Recycling crayons started as a gift making project with her kids. It quickly became an effort to create an "educational tool" for teaching kids about recycling with something of their own. The Crayon Recycle Program was born when the first "drop-off bin" was placed in a grocery store entryway. It's now 16 years later and more than 43,000 pounds of unwanted crayons DIDN'T go into the landfills! "This seems to make so much sense", people tell her almost every day.
This "educational tool" can be used by kids to organize a "crayon drive" at a classroom level or brought to a whole community level by collecting unwanted crayons from schools, restaurants, day cares, clinic waiting rooms, any place they see crayons going into the trash.
When the shipments of crayons arrive at LuAnn's home workshop, the boxes are taken to a local work center in Rhinelander called, Opportunities Unlimited, employing people with developmental disabilities. They do a wonderful job of meticulously sorting the crayons into 26 different colors and to assure only crayons certified non-toxic are used for the newly recycled crayons. Then the sorted crayons come back to LuAnn's workshop where they are melted down, sterilized, strained and hand poured into molds to create beautiful, functional works of art called, Crazy Crayons, for kids to enjoy coloring with again.
Crazy Crayons are multi-colored, swirled crayons that come in hundreds on shapes and many themes, such as: Butterflies, flowers, stars, trains, bugs, bears, hearts, horses, dinosaurs, and many more. They are put in environmentally conscious packaging and sold as singles or sets and some come with a recycled paper doodle pad. Crazy Crayons are sold in Gift Shops at National Parks, Zoos, Galleries, and "Green" Stores. LuAnn makes and designs some of the molds. She custom made Crazy Crayons for Cartoon Network (10 of their cartoon characters). She also "crayonized" the Statue of Liberty for the Gift Shop on Ellis Island. How cool is that?
"Earthling", the Crayon Recycle Program mascot says, "Color me a clean Earth!" LuAnn made the costume and wears it for school presentations, parades, and Earth conscious events. She invites everyone to visit the Crazy Crayon Workshop and the only one of it's kind, Crayon Museum.
More than 12 million crayons are manufactured each day in this country. Just think for a moment, "How many dumpsters does that fill?" The 43,000 pounds that LuAnn has collected "is only a drop in a bucket", that's only one of the reasons this Crayon Recycle Program makes so much sense. When kids learn about recycling, they teach their parents.
Check out the website: www.crazycrayons.com for more information.
