By Stephanie Vaccaro, Staff Writer
Two years ago Shubhankar Chhokra’s mother complained there were crayons all over the house and told him to do something about it.
Twelve-year-old Shubhankar decided that instead of throwing them away, they could be donated to children in other countries and Color the World, a club he later founded at the Lawrenceville School, had its beginnings.
Today, there are drop-off locations at the public libraries in Princeton, West Windsor and Plainsboro, as well as nine others in New Jersey.
The club also has drop-off locations in Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Plans are under way for adding drop off sites in South Carolina and New York as well.
”The World is an organization that collects crayons and distributes them to children in developing nations,” said Kimberly Corcoran, vice president of communication.
Its mission is to strive to make smiling contagious, to build futures and to spread happiness in both their communities and the communities they help by providing crayons to the children who need them the most.
Color the World has projects in India, Costa Rica and Uganda, each receiving any where from 1,500 to 10,000 crayons. The partnerships came as a result of family connections and friends. The group partners with established nonprofits in those countries who pay the shipping costs.
”So far, we’ve helped 1,720 students,” said Shubhankar.
Now at the end of his freshman year at the Lawrenceville School, Shubhankar is happy to see that after mentioning the project in his culture studies class so many of his classmates were interested in getting involved.
”Everyone in my class embraced it, everyone wanted to help,” he said. The club now boasts 38 freshman in a class of about 120.
When the students sat around a table reflecting on their experience and vision, the sustainability, the two-way effect and expansion were on their minds.
”Whenever I think about charity, whenever any of us think about charity, we always think about a two-way effect helping communities somewhere else but also helping our communities,” said Shubhankar.
”We thought about crayons, how it’s such a common thing here that even financially unstable people can help to give,” said Shubhankar.
They were quick to note that the collection of unwanted crayons reduces the amount of trash and at the same time is a resource for the next user.
The club meets once a week where they collect, sanitize and sort the crayons.
They like to think of their club as an organization and plan to register it as a nonprofit in the future.
They are working on new projects, one of which is having broken crayons melted down and remade. Another is possibly forming partnerships with area restaurants that go through a relatively high volume of crayons.
”We’re also interested in expanding our donations, not just crayons, maybe other education supplies and monetary donations in the future,” said Shubhankar.
The group is welcoming partnerships and ideas for collection. You can contact them at [email protected].
For more information, see www.colortheworld.yolasite.com.

