“Sometimes when I’m, like, overwhelmed with school work or, like, scared about COVID, sometimes I just do arts and crafts, and they calm me down,” she said.
Over the summer, Art Love has provided more than 2,000 kits to kids in 10 states and Washington, D.C.
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In addition to hand-delivering supplies to children in Philly, Camden and Delaware, Ava has also mobilized family and friends in the area to help. Some of her most recent drop-offs include the Laurel House, Families Forward Philadelphia, and Pathways PA.
"Because of COVID and in general, kids will be having a really hard time, especially homeless kids. We thought this would be a cool thing and make kids happier," she said.
Ava credits Chelsea’s Charity for inspiration. The organization founded by 11-year-old Chelsea Phaire has also sent thousands of art kits across the country.
What Ava’s family thought would be a fun summer project has blossomed into something more, says her Dad, Arun Rajappa.
“With kids not going into school, the demand from the school systems, they’re asking do you have school supplies, because the kids aren’t able to get them,” he said.
Their Art Love 360 campaign is also environmentally friendly. They rescue used art supplies, refurbish them, and make bulk donations to shelters and local communities or package them into kits.
“We also want to help the environment, so we collect used art supplies, broken crayons. We would peel off the wrappers and cut them into really small pieces, then melt them down into molds we have, like emoji molds and Lego molds. That’s also better for autistic kids,” Ava said.
She says so far, 69 pounds of art supplies have been repurposed and saved from landfills in just a couple of months. However, what she’s most proud of is being a light during difficult times.
“Probably just being able to make so many kids happy, also like out of states,” she said.