Dolls for Donations!
For every $25 donation we receive, the Creativity Shell will sew a special doll to honor your donation and fulfill our mission to use creative trades such as sewing/textile arts to educate and inspire kids!
What is the Creativity Shell?
The Creativity Shell is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that uses creative trades to educate and inspire kids. Our organization provides free sewing/textile art classes in Houston Public Libraries, schools and special shelters that rescue kids from homelessness and human trafficking. Through sewing/textile art classes, we are teaching kids practical and vocational skills.
To continue our work, our organization needs to purchase sewing machines, age appropriate materials/supplies and pay for the cost of reputable teachers who will teach our sewing programs at numerous Public Libraries, schools and shelters in Houston on a weekly basis for the 2016 – 2017 school year.
The ability to sew and use other creative trades is becoming a lost art in the United States; we fear it will greatly impact our children. We have become a generation of buyers and our children are losing the ability to make or do anything for themselves. The Creativity Shell is using sewing/textile arts classes and other trades to circumvent this epidemic by teaching kids to think creativity and learn vocational skills. By teaching classes that involve up-cycling clothing, ironing, designing, sewing, fabric dyeing, costume design, quilting, and home economics skills, we are inspiring kids to use creative elements to efficiently make something out of nothing.
Furthermore, the issue of the dying trades industry is a silent issue that rarely receives media coverage. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas along with jobs in the textile industry. The need for tradesmen has increased but the supply has greatly decreased. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) and Monster.com (leading United States employment recruiting website) the top five skilled trades in America that are facing a shortage are: electrician, machinist, welding, construction and plumbing. Furthermore, the (BLS, 2015) reports that in the next 10 years, the demand for these skilled trades jobs will increase by over 30% of it’s current rate.
Philanthropy
As we teaching our students to sew, we are also teaching them to give back to the community with organizations such as Project Linus. Project Linus is a fantastic organization that makes blankets to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need. The Creativity Shell has partnered with Project Linus to help sew blankets. The blankets will be handmade by children enrolled in our free sewing/textile arts classes in Houston and will be donated to needy children nationwide.
Through the combined nature of our free after school programs, practical and vocational sills, teaching kids to give back to society as well as an alternative education initiative; the Creativity Shell hopes to provide a place where kids learn to be creative and possibly inspire them to fill a gap in the job market in the years to come.
Dolls will be framed and hung up at the new Creativity Shell makerspace for kids in Kingwood, TX. Each doll will contain the name of the donor so everyone who enters the makerspace will see all the amazing people who support our mission.
Please donate to the Creativity Shell today so we can continue to educate and inspire earth's most precious resources...our kids! All donations are tax-deductible.
