Crayola reunites adults with their childhood artwork

(NewsNation) — Crayola is on a mission to reunite adults with the artwork they created when they were children years ago.

Crayola’s Campaign for Creativity comes as American youth are spending more time staring at screens. Crayola CEO Pete Ruggiero told NewsNation that creativity improves all areas of mental health and development.

“Creativity is very important,” said Ruggiero. “So we started some research with the Ad Council, and we found that nine out of 10 parents wanted creativity to help develop their kids. They just didn’t know how to integrate that into their lives.”

According to Crayola, it began 40 years ago when the company began collecting children’s artwork. A series of films feature the stories of three adults across the country who participated in a Crayola art program as kids. As they are reunited with their childhood artwork, the adults reflect on how creativity impacted their lives and the importance of nurturing creativity in their own children.

“We did this campaign for creativity so that we could learn more deeply about how it is that those kids use creativity to get where they are and to how they engage with their parents and teachers in that effort,” Ruggiero said.