A Color for Everyone

When Bellen Woodard was in third grade, a classmate asked her a question. She had heard it many times before. You might have too.

“Would you please pass the skin-colored crayon?”

As usual, Bellen handed the peach crayon to her friend. But this time, something bothered her. She was the only Black girl in her grade. While peach matched most of her classmates’ skin colors, it didn’t match hers. So why did everyone call it the skin-colored crayon?

“It made me kind of feel not as important,” says Bellen, who’s now in fifth grade. “Like there’s only one skin color.”

She wanted her friends to stop thinking of peach as the only skin color. Different kids needed other crayons to draw themselves. But how could she change the way her classmates thought about skin color?

When Bellen Woodard was in third grade, a classmate asked her a question. She had heard it before. You might have too.

"Would you please pass the skin-colored crayon?”

Bellen handed the peach crayon to her friend. But something bothered her. She was the only Black girl in her grade. Peach matched the skin color of most of her classmates. But it didn’t match hers. So why did everyone call it the skin-colored crayon?

“It made me kind of feel not as important,” says Bellen, who’s now in fifth grade. “Like there’s only one skin color.”

She wanted her friends to stop thinking of peach as the only skin color. Different kids needed other crayons to draw themselves. But how could she change the way her classmates thought about skin color?

In 2019, Bellen’s More Than Peach Project was born. Bellen decided that, in order for people to celebrate each other’s differences, the world needed to be more inclusive.

“I wanted to make sure that everyone has a crayon that represents them and matches their skin,” the 9-year-old says.

But most boxes of crayons don’t include enough colors to do that. So Bellen used money that she had saved up to order crayons in diverse skin tones. She packed them with sketch pads and donated them to schools near her home in Leesburg, Virginia.

Before long, word of Bellen’s project spread on social media. Many kids were excited to finally have the colors they needed to draw themselves. Suddenly, people across the country were asking for the crayons. Bellen decided to sell her kits online. She uses some of that money to fund her free donation packs.

In 2019, Bellen’s More Than Peach Project was born. Bellen wanted to celebrate people’s differences. She wanted to make the world more inclusive.

“I wanted to make sure that everyone has a crayon that represents them and matches their skin,” the 9-year-old says.

But most boxes of crayons don’t include enough colors to do that. So Bellen used her own money to order crayons in diverse skin tones. She packed them with sketch pads. She donated the packs to schools near her home in Leesburg, Virginia.

Word of Bellen’s project spread on social media. Kids were excited to finally have the colors they needed to draw themselves. People across the country asked for the crayons. Bellen decided to sell her kits online. She uses some of that money to fund her donation packs.