Clients from KIND’s Orlando Office Enjoy the “Crayola Experience”

January 31, 2025

KIND’s Orlando office partnered with Crayola to bring clients to The Crayola Experience, an amusement park at a local mall for kids and families to explore art, technology, express their creativity, and encounter color in a new way. Eight clients ages 10 to 16 and their parents and caregivers attended. 

KIND clients designed their own coloring books and created their own crayon using a “Make Your Own Crayon” machine and named their new crayon color. 

“It was great to see the creative names that the kids gave their crayons,” said Kat Cedeno, social services coordinator at KIND’s Orlando office who helped plan the event. Names included “Sergeant squirrels,” “Garaba” and “Tesla.” 

A clay machine dispensed clay for kids to mold and take home. One client, a young girl from Honduras, was a natural artist and spent the entire afternoon playing with and working clay. She made a variety of things including a little puppy and a series of hearts. “It was wonderful to see her enjoying herself and getting so into the clay,” said Kat. Clients also enjoyed a “Slime Lab” where they could touch, feel, and play with slime. “I skipped the slime,” laughed Kat.  

Creativity and play are central to the mission of The Crayola Experience and to KIND’s approach to working with clients. Natalie Segovia, social services supervisor at KIND’s Atlanta office who was involved in planning the event, said: 

Play and art are one of our main therapeutic tools as psychosocial services providers and a big part of how we help our kids move forward. In the therapeutic toolkits used at KIND, we keep crayons, markers, paper, and other art supplies for kids to use during our sessions. Art, creativity, and play are also tools for clients in their lives, whether at school or at home, and we want to promote that. Playing, art, drawing, and coloring really ground the work we do to make kids feel safe and give them space to express their feelings and ideas, to then be able to have more difficult conversations, for example about their home country or their legal case.  

For Kat, her favorite part of the event was seeing the parents take time to unwind, relax, breathe, and just spend time with their kids. “I saw the moms and aunts playing and sitting and coloring with their kids. I saw the joy on their faces. It was special to see them be able to be there with their kids, have fun, and release stress—many of them don’t have many opportunities to do that,” she said.  

At the end of the visit, Crayola gave clients bags with stickers, coins to use at the games, and toys. KIND is grateful to Crayola for this opportunity and hopes to continue to build this partnership in the spirit of creativity and the importance of artistic expression and therapeutic play to our clients.

 


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