A 10-year-old girl from Conneticut has made it her mission to ensure every child has something uplifting to do during the ongoing pandemic, no matter if they’re in a homeless shelter or in foster care.
As CNN reported, Chelsea Phaire has personally assembled and sent more than 1,500 art kits to children all across the country as part of Chelsea’s Charity , an organization she founded with her parents.
RELATED STORIES
The sixth grade student officially launched her charity on her birthday in August 2019 as a way to provide art kits to underprivileged children.
“Since she was seven, she was begging me and her dad to start a charity,” Candace Phaire, Chelsea’s mom, told CNN . “She was so persistent, every couple of months she would ask, ‘Are we starting Chelsea’s Charity yet?'”
“When she was turning 10, she asked us again, and we decided it was time to go for it.”
The kids that Chelsea assembles are filled with all the colorful art supplies necessary for a child to get really creative.
Each one includes markers, crayons, paper, coloring books, colored pencils, and gel pens, which are all donated through the family’s Amazon wish list . Once the kits have been assembled, they are delivered to schools, homeless shelters, foster care homes, and women’s shelters all across the country.
In just the first five months of the charity’s operations, Chelsea and her mom personally handed out nearly 1,000 kits to children in need.
The recent coronavirus outbreak has forced the Chelsea Charity to adjust its practices in order to adhere to new social distancing measures.
Whereas before Chelsea and her mom would travel across the country with their kits to personally put them in the hands of children, they’ve now resorted to shipping them instead.
But the pandemic has also increased the need for activities that children can occupy themselves with, and use to lift their spirits during such a dark time in their young lives.
Chelsea’s organization is not simply about putting colored pencils in children’s hands — it’s about healing through art therapy, something this youngster knows a lot about.
When Chelsea was 8 years old, her swim instructor who she considered part of her family was shot and killed during one of their swim meets.
In an effort to deal with that trauma, Chelsea turned to her love for art and what started as a hobby turned into a means of therapy.
Chelsea understood that there are even more children in the world who, like herself, are struggling to cope with traumatic events.
This is what inspired her to help provide them with the means to channel that pain into something creative through the use of art supplies.
“Art therapy is being prescribed a lot more to support the mental health of young kids, especially those with social and emotional deficiencies,” her mom, Candace, an early childhood education professor and former teacher, told CNN .
Now more than ever, children are in need of some way to heal themselves and express their feelings through safe and creative means.
“A lot of kids in shelters and also children in foster homes might not have access to art supplies they usually find in school,” Candace explained. “It’s also mental health awareness month, so that’s definitely motivating us to ramp it up send even more kits.”
Since schools closed in March, Chelsea has sent out more than 1,500 art kits to shelters and foster care homes in 12 states.
“I feel good inside knowing how happy they are when they get their art kits,” Chelsea told CNN . “I have definitely grown as a person because of this. Now my dream is to meet every kid in the entire world and give them art.”
“Who knows,” she continued, “maybe if we do that and then our kids do that, we’ll have world peace!”
For more information about Chelsea’s Charity, you can visit their website or check out their Instagram @chelseascharity
h/t: CNN
