This 10-Year-Old Started Her Own Charity To Help Kids In Foster Care Cope With The Pandemic
Chelsea Phaire is a 10-year-old girl from Danbury, Connecticut who’s using her time in quarantine to lift the spirits of other children who are stuck at home. Phaire has sent out more than 1,500 art kits to her local homeless shelters and foster care homes to give kids without a proper place to live a reason to smile, even if it’s just for a moment.
The kits themselves include art supplies such as markers, crayons, paper, coloring books, colored pencils, and gel pens. Phaire and her parents have not only sent these kids to local shelters in Connecticut, but to dozens of other shelters all around the United States.
Perhaps the best part of this entire story is that Chelsea and her parents have been able to send these kits through a very special charity called, Chelsea’s Charity. The charity was started by both Chelsea and her parents this year, and according to her parents, this has been a dream of their daughter since she was 7-years-old.
The charity was able to kick off this year with some special help from Chelsea’s friends, according to the website. “Chelsea’s Charity officially kicked off when Chelsea asked her guests at her 10th birthday party to bring art supplies as a donation in lieu of gifts for herself. Chelsea has a desire to support children and help them know that art is a start to healing, expression, communicating and so much more! Huge thank you to those who have contributed already; it means so much to Chelsea! Keep us in prayer as we embark on this exciting journey! #ChelseasCharity.”
According to her parents Chelsea would ask them “every couple of months” when they’d be able to start her charity. When she turned 10, as mentioned above, she asked all of her friends to bring art supplies to donate instead of birthday presents, leading to the massive influx in supplies. After her birthday party Chelsea and her parents were able to make and send 40 art kits to a homeless shelter in New York.
After the extremely positive feedback from Chelsea’s friends parents and the homeless shelter itself, her parents set up an Amazon Wishlist for the charity that’s full of art supplies that anyone can easily click on to donate. You can donate yourself by visiting the charity website or going to the wishlist directly, here.
Every time the family hits their minimum number of supplies to start creating kits they immediately begin assembling and sending them out. Within the first five months of running Chelsea and her mom claim they sent out over 1,000 kits to kids all across America. They specifically look to donate to homeless shelters, foster care homes, women’s shelters, and schools that have been impacted by gun violence. The goal is simple, spread some colorful positivity during such a dark uncertain time.
“I feel good inside knowing how happy they are when they get their art kits. 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, maybe if we do that and then our kids do that, we’ll have world peace!” Chelsea said in a recent interview.
Phaire’s mother is an early childhood education professor who has a lot of experience using art therapy to help children cope with mental health struggles and social/emotional deficiencies. She’s also seen first hand how much kids within the foster care system are denied access to any sort of resources to help improve their mental health, which is why she also has been so passionate about running this charity with her daughter.
If you want to donate to Chelsea’s Charity and help brighten the lives of countless children who are struggling even more than normal thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, click here.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.