August 1, 2014
For the past 4 years, since Taylor began Kindergarten, I have been volunteering in the Meet the Masters art program at school. When Syd began elementary school, I took turns alternating each month between the two classrooms, and needless to say both kids have always looked forward to seeing me in the class, even if I was just passing out brushes or cleaning up. Meet the Masters is a standardized art program available to schools all over, that features the work of several well known artists. The program is 100% run by parent volunteers like myself, and is usually funded primarily through donations. As you can imagine, not every school across the country would be able to afford to run such a program.
The educational benefits of art programs, especially when included in school curriculum, are well known. From the early child development years all the way through high school, incorporating art programs at school have tremendous benefits from increased cultural awareness and language development, to an increase in academic success and higher career goals. If you’ve had a chance to watch your own child work on art projects at home, you probably already know that it’s obviously a great creative outlet too, but when you have a chance to watch a room full of kids create art, even for just a small amount of time, you pick up on some other amazing benefits too. These kids are excited, engaged and rarely have to be told to pay attention or stop talking during instruction. They feel compelled to create their own masterpieces for the sheer enjoyment of it, and rarely feel nervous of making mistakes or getting the answer wrong; a nice change of pace to the common core curriculum they focus on for the majority of the school day. From a layperson’s point of view, there’s a tremendous difference in energy between regular school hours when I’m volunteering, than when the art program is in session. Often times during Meet the Masters, the students are so attentive that the teacher will use this time to leave the room and perform other work duties. It’s quite different than normal instruction time when I often over-hear her telling the kids to settle down and warnings of disciplinary action are doled out every few minutes.
But even though we all know the benefits to kids self esteem, school performance and enthusiasm for school, that the arts can bring, school budgets for art programs continue to be cut year after year. But schools, parents and organizations, continue to be creative in finding ways to try and fund these programs because they understand just how valuable they are. Once such company that was created to help fund some of the vital programs like sports, arts and music, is Schoola.
Schoola is an online consignment store that accepts gently used name brand clothing items, with a portion of the proceeds going to schools in need, yours included. You can read more about how it works and some FAQ’s on their site, but the basics are that for every sale on Schoola, 40% of the proceeds go to your chosen school to help pay for these vital, often underfunded programs at school. Schoola ships you a bag, you fill it up and return it, and then collect a portion of sales for your school.
Because a new school year is quickly approaching – we go back in just 10 days! – Schoola wants to get the word out about how you can help clean out closets and drawers, while raising money for valuable school programs at the same time. I’ve chosen to adopt Yick Wo Elementary in San Francisco, which is raising funds to help further their art program on campus. You can learn more about Yick Wo in the video below.
If you’re interested in trying out Schoola this school year, simply request a donation bag to be sent to you, fill it up and send it back in. Since I’m trying to raise money for Yick Wo, when you request a bag, $1 will be sent to my sponsored school. Plus, when you fill out your school information, you’ll be earning $2 for every $5 made for valuable art and sports programs at your school. Win/win for both of us!
While it’s disheartening and frustrating that these amazing and valuable programs continue to be underfunded, despite their proven benefit, it’s also encouraging that parents, educators and private companies across the country, continue to think outside the box in finding ways to help. It’s easy to get down about the situation, but instead of getting down about it, I’d much rather try to be proactive and help out, and I know most feel the same. A sincere thanks to the creators of Schoola for coming up with this creative opportunity to allow us to help.
This post is brought to you by Schoola, the best place to buy discounted kids clothes all while give back to schools in need. Click here to learn more about Schoola. Click here to see what people are saying.
