Our Beneficiary

Team MAD is proud and honored to announce Crayon for Cancer as its 2011 beneficiary.

Crayons for Cancer all began because of a challenge to the community in 2008 to grow a small pot of money donated by the Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church. After a little while without direction an unlikely answer came in the form of a boxful of old crayons. They didn’t know it at the time, but those crayons later inspired Crayons for Cancer founder, Emily Christensen, to come up with the idea to melt the crayons down into fun shapes and sell them in order to make money for kids with cancer in honor and memory of her friend TJ who died just before reaching his 4th birthday. So, with the $50 they purchased some cooking trays in different shapes (stars, hearts, etc), approached multiple restaurants about donating used crayons, and started their mission.

It wasn't long before the neighbors and local business of Manchester were pitching in. Their first goal was raise $200, then $1,000, and in the span of 5 months they received their first $2,000. Since then they have traveled to different parts of the United States, inspired chapters to grow in Minnesota and Rhode Island, and continue to grow. Today they are hoping to raise enough money to pay for parking for every Oncology patient at Connecticut Children's Medical Center.

We welcome Crayons for Cancer to our community and look forward to becoming part of theirs.

To learn more about Crayons for Cancer you can go to their site at www.crayonsforcancer.org.