Community Service Placemats

crayola supplies

Multicultural Markers
Erasable Colored Pencils
Twistables®
Construction Paper

household supplies

none

Why

Put a smile on someone’s face with your art work. Decorate placemats for soup kitchens and similar programs as a community service.

Steps

1. With your family, think of ways to bring joy to people in your community. Placemats are one way to share your creativity and thoughts with others. Ask an adult to contact the organization you choose about decorating paper placemats for their meal service trays. You could use plain white placemats or legal-size copy paper.
2. Choose your theme. This project works any time of year---Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Cinco de Mayo, Martin Luther King Day of Service---and is nearly always welcomed.
3. Let your imagination soar. Use Crayola Twistables®, Erasable Colored Pencils, and Multicultural Markers to draw landscapes, yourself, messages, poems, flowers, or designs. Make as many different or similar placemats as you want. Recipients sometimes hang these pictures in their rooms!
4. Ask an adult to arrange delivery. Maybe you could help put them on trays or deliver meals.

When & Where

"Our neighborhood always gets children together during the holidays to do good deeds. All ages could help with these. "
- Sonya L., block parent and mother of 5- and 10-year-olds.

"Our son and I did this project with Scouts for Martin Luther King Day of Service. The boys helped deliver meals at a nursing home. "
- Shubnum C., mom of 7-year-old.

Interesting Info

People in many cultures have used placemats for years to protect their tables while eating. In Ghana, placemats are sometimes Kente cloth. Kente cloth is made from locally grown cotton, hand harvested, spun into yarn, and then dyed with traditional colors. The fabric designs often indicate in which village the cloth was made.