A New Hartford school wants to help you get a head start on your spring cleaning by collecting your broken crayons.

ER Hughes, and elementary school in the New Hartford Central School district is participating in the 'The Great Crayon Project'. Even cooler, 'The Great Crayon Project' is a Central New York business dedicated to upcycling used, broken crayons into rainbow crayons of all shapes and sizes.

Once the old crayons are collected, the Oneonta-based organization peels the paper off, washed them, and melts them into new crayons. Those crayons are then donated to kids' organizations, exchanged for old crayons at schools, or sold, and then the profits are used to buy school supplies for kids.

'The Great Crayon Project' even supports people with developmental disabilites: "We are pleased to have partnered with The ARC Otsego. We hire their residents through The ARC's work program to help us peel the crayons. This partnership has become a huge help for our project and we love supporting the residents and The ARC Otsego Organization."

Since March 2018, The Great Crayon Project has donated over 4,532 crayons, exchanged over 2,914 crayons, and donated over 6,071 school supplies.

If you'd like to donate broken crayons, you can bring them to ER Hughes at 340 Higby Road, New Hartford by March 6th. If you'd like to support 'The Great Crayon Challenge', check out their website, or you can buy their upcycled crayons from their Etsy store.

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