In 2013, Bryan Ware founded The Crayon Initiative, a nonprofit organization that repurposes old, used crayons into brand new crayons and distributes them to children’s hospitals.
Ware collects old crayons from restaurants, schools, and day cares. He separates them by color and melts them down.
Instead of the typical round shape of most crayons, Ware puts the wax into a triangular shape mold, which is easier to grip for small children and kids with special needs.
The Crayon Initiative has donated more than 2,000 boxes of crayons to children’s hospitals.
“From my perspective, the biggest goal is to give them an escape,” Ware told The Mighty. “I can’t even fathom what these kids are going through. If these crayons give them an escape from that hospital room for ten minutes, we did our job.”