Local groups, families, and teachers load up lunch bags with creativity

Lunch bags loaded with art materials, STEM activities, and Legos are making their way into the hands of Wenatchee students thanks to the collaborative efforts of teachers and community partners.

The Wenatchee Arts Education Consortium, The Wenatchee Valley Museum, and Cultural Center, WenEA, Nick's Bricks, the Rutherford, Rolfs, Langston, and Nicpan-Brown families and other anonymous donors helped fund and fill bags. The Grab & Go Bags are available each Wednesday from 11 AM - 1 PM at Columbia, Washington, Lincoln, Mission View, Newbery, Sunnyslope, Orchard, and Foothills.

“Creativity fosters curiosity in kids,” said Nicpan-Brown, a 5th-grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary. “The art, STEM and Lego bags that we are providing encourage kids to explore, manipulate, and problem solve. These skills help build their vocabulary and provide an opportunity to practice persistence and resiliency.”

The idea for these activity bags started with Sara Rolfs and Tina Nicpan-Brown with support from Roxana Vanatta and Deb Lewin. It started off with the creation and distribution of the bags at Columbia, Lincoln, and Washington. The initial money was provided by the Wenatchee Art Education Consortium and Nicpan-Brown’s family purchased Legos. The project really took off after the money from a Wenatchee Education Association (WenEA) funded STEM Family Night Grant was reallocated. It allowed Nicpan-Brown to purchase additional supplies and expand the activity bags distribution across the Wenatchee School District, including all the schools offering free meals during the school closure. After seeing the early popularity of the bags among families, WenEA and an anonymous donor stepped in with additional funding to help ensure activities bags would continue to be available K-8 through the end of the school year. 

Families and community members are carefully preparing materials to fill the bags and taking extra precautions to sanitize Legos. “My family and the Rolfs family have enjoyed spending family time together assembling the bags, said Nicpan-Brown. “It feels good to be contributing to the community.” Jayne Vitulli worked at home to sanitize the Lego bricks with bleach and water and spread them out to air dry in her backyard before packing them up for the bags. In a video message, Vitulli encourages children to keep on building with their Legos and to sanitize their bricks in the same way. Vitulli and her husband, Kevin had also previously donated Legos from the canceled March 7th Nick’s Bricks Annual Lego event. Nick’s Bricks is named in memory of Vitulli's son Nicholas (Nick) H. Vitulli. The event, which typically draws over 1,000 people, was canceled due to COVID-19.

After picking up an additional six large tubs of sanitized Legos, Nicpan-Brown was surprised with a “happy donation” of 800 sealed Happy Meal Lego building kits donated by the local Wenatchee McDonald’s franchises.

Every Wednesday, teacher volunteers pick up pre-filled bags and distribute them at their schools from 11 am to 1 pm. Each week will highlight either an Art bag or a STEM bag. May 6th and June 3rd will be Lego Challenge bags and each bag will contain Legos and a 30-day challenge calendar. Grab & Go Activity bags will be available weekly through June 17th.