Habits of Waste

“A draft return was reviewed by the president, executive director, and treasurer. Any comments will be discussed with outside CPA and any necessary changes will be made to the return prior to filing.”

“During the year, all board members signed a written statement that they have read the conflict of interest policy and have disclosed all possible conflicts.”

“Outside comparibility data was obtained as a base to determine both the executive director and president's salary that was appoved by the board.”

“The organization's governing documents and conflict of interest policy are available upon request.”

“Despite the limitations from Covid, our organization continued to creatively make an impact on the environment and vulnerable children. In 2021, at Crayon Collection, our most significant accomplishment, was partnering with The Getty Museum in Los Angeles for their summer virtual art making program. The program was provided for free to over 30,000 students in public Title 1 schools across the country. We also provided recycled crayons via U.S. mail to students that didn't have any of their own. As part of the program, we facilitated zooms with professional artists to teach our art curriculum using recycled crayons as the main tool. We added two additional artists to our roster and updated curriculum to include the benefits of social emotional learning to support the children during this very difficult and strenuous time. We also relaunched our crayon recycling program with restaurants and schools internationally as the world started to loosen covid restrictions. We were able to secure and donate 150,000 crayons on national crayon day, March 31, 2021. Due to Covid, to support the most vulnerable unhoused child population we supported outdoor learning classrooms that were being held in motels in Los Angeles by providing crayons and other school supplies with our art education curriculum. We set a World Record with our partners at Gish to deliver notes of kindness to frontline heroes as part of our color kindness program. Over 5,000 notes of kindness were written with recycled crayons and documented through social medial. In addition, our environmental efforts continued to flourish via our Habits of Waste programs and campaigns. Our #CutOutCutlery campaign, successfully convinced all four major food delivery applications, including GrubHub, UberEats, PostMates and DoorDash to change their default settings so that cutlery was only provided upon request. This was a significant win, and PostMates reported that in under a year they were able to save 122 million packs of cutlery, which equates to a $3.2MM savings for restaurants, from entering the waste stream. This was critical information to help pass legislation in the states of Washington and California making single-use food service items available by request only. In addition, over 25 cites across the country have signed on to make cutlery by request only ordinances. Our #8Meals campaign inspired by a study stating that decreasing our animal protein intake by 40% can make a significant difference in the fight against climate change, encouraging individuals to swap 8 meals a week for plant-based meals as doing so for a year is the equivalent of driving a hybrid car in carbon offset has taken off and has been featured just weeks before COP26 at TedxGlasgow as an idea worth spreading and throughout the year at the World Economic Forum highlighting Habits of Waste as a nutrition disruptor. We provided the app for companies to start using as a mechanism to start tracking their employees carbon offset. In July we introduced, #Ship Naked a campaign to convince online retailers to ship packages in their original packaging without excess materials. Over 5,000 emails have been sent to Amazon, Walmart, and Target, and we are in talks with these companies to discuss ways to reduce unnecessary packaging. Buzzfeed and other outlets reported on this campaign to help spread the mission and our PSA has received 500,000 views. And finally, we launched Lights, Camera, Plastic? to convince Hollywood to remove single-use plastic from screens and replace with reusable alternatives instead. The goal is to de-normalize single use plastic on screen, (much like the no-smoking ban on-screen) which scientists believe is a key piece to the fight to end the plastic pollution crisis. We created and provided tools for all Hollywood productions to help implement the change, such as watermarks for scripts, posters for set with QR codes and emails from top level executives and Hollywood change makers to cast and”

“The mission of Crayon Collection is to use the collection and reallocation of gently used crayons to inspire a commitment to environmental consciousness and infuse art education into underfunded schools. Our model is simple but powerful: we ask restaurants and hotels that offer free crayons to children when they dine, along with community-based groups, to collect gently used crayons and then we redistribute them to the most vulnerable schools across the U.S. Given that teachers spend an average of $900 out-of-pocket for basic supplies, our repurposed crayons meet a crucial need for both classroom supplies and art resources and help redirect millions of crayons from landfills. Through the simple act of saving a crayon, we seek to create a new "eco-normal" consciousness that inspires families, children, and communities everywhere to be stewards of the environment and nearby communities in need. We take the crayons one step further by challenging professional artists to offer us deep thinking project ideas using the crayon as the main tool. Next, our volunteer educators create lesson plans using these projects so that teachers in underserved classrooms nationwide can download and teach these art projects that have lined up with the stem curriculum as well as Social Emotional Learning standards. While in 2021, our traditional program was hindered due to COVID-19, we continue to be committed to ensuring all children have access to crayons and an education that includes art. We have further expanded our environmental efforts after spearheading the plastic straw and cutlery ban in the City of Malibu so that we can continue creating new systems within society to teach and advocate for environmental consciousness. Through our HoW program, we continue to find solutions to shift societal norms to protect our planet. We are working with more cities to ban all types of single-use plastics, educate individuals about their tap water so that they can make an informed decisions to consider drinking tap water instead of assuming they need to purchase single-use plastic water bottles. We also developed an app to help people take action and change their habits by decreasing their animal protein intake and get informed about simple actions that individuals and corporations can take that collectively make a huge impact.”

“program consultants: Program service expenses 26,844. Management and general expenses 0. Fundraising expenses 0. Total expenses 26,844. other contract services: Program service expenses 1,494. Management and general expenses 94. Fundraising expenses 103. Total expenses 1,691. public relations: Program service expenses 28,200. Management and general expenses 0. Fundraising expenses 0. Total expenses 28,200.”