Bringing Color to Moravian Graduate Education Certification Program

Liz Blose, a Moravian University M.Ed student and Wind Gap Middle School teacher, has been making extreme leaps in an effort to take her fifth grader Bethany Kuster’s “Color for Kids” nonprofit to a whole new level. The mission of Color for Kids is "To promote individual expression and creativity through color, of children in high poverty schools, enrolled in grades pre-k through four, by providing personal art supplies." Color for Kids was inspired by Bethany’s dream for every child to have their own box of crayons and created in order to donate art supplies to schools and children who may not be able to afford them.

Although Bethany Kuster’s “Color for Kids” became an official nonprofit the year before she was in Liz Blose’s fifth grade class, Liz has become a major contributor to the success of the foundation. Before the 2016-2017 school year started, Liz studied how to create project-based learning in her classroom. After learning about Bethany's Color for Kids non profit organization, Liz knew she wanted to use this project-based learning unit in her classroom to propel Color for Kids forward. After discussing the idea with Bethany’s family, Liz began to implement a project-based learning unit into her classroom. 

Liz’s fifth grade class started with small projects like creating “Color Boxes” in their art classes. These boxes were then placed throughout the school district, in order to hold the school's art supply donations.The class also created persuasive posters in order to convince people to donate to the nonprofit. They then implemented a “Jeans Day” at the school in order to raise money for art supplies. On this day, each teacher paid five dollars to wear jeans for the day. This day alone, raised about $700 for the foundation. 

In total, Blose's class raised $1200 from all their fundraisers this 2016-2017 school year. The money raised was divided into six groups for grades K-5, and the 5th graders in Liz’s class are preparing budget presentations on how they plan to spend the money they raised to purchase art supplies for each specific grade at an elementary school in Bronx, NY. Blose's students will present their budget ideas to the school administration and Bethany's mother for approval. After all of this is completed, the class will buy their art supplies, and deliver them to the Bronx Elementary School on a field trip scheduled for April 19th, 2017. They will be visiting the school, where they will have the opportunity to personally hand the students their new art supplies. 

Bethany has donated thousands of art supplies to children all around the world, and with the help of Liz Blose and her project based teaching, that number will only be increasing. Please visit http://www.colorforkids.net for more information or to donate. Also, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVihZyYyblk&t=3s to watch Bethany on the Steve Harvey Show!