 Welcome to Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm Cynthia Sinclair. It's wonderful that you've joined us today. I have two very special guests that I'm very excited to introduce. Jasmine and Jade Baker, thank you so much for coming. Now I've had you guys on my show before and it was when you were doing the human trafficking stuff. You are doing so much stuff all the time. I'm really proud of you. So proud of you. I loved watching you over this last year as you've just gone on to do so many wonderful things. So right now you have a new initiative that you're working on and I want you to please tell me all about it or tell us I should say all about it. So for one I am your 2019 teen Miss Pacific Ocean and I had the opportunity to represent Hawaii in Vegas this past month and I work with diverting crayons from landfills. So not many people know but it actually takes 90 years for a crayon to biodegrade in our environment. Wow. Exactly. That was everyone's reactions at nationals. Yes. And whenever you go to iHOPs or Denny's, a lot of the places where they use one time these crayons, people don't automatically think about what happens to these crayons after your children are done coloring or playing with them. Right. You've been to Denny's and I have you saw the kids coloring right? Oh my gosh. I just spent three weeks with my granddaughter. Everywhere we went. Everywhere. That's what they do and I didn't know that was one time use but of course because then otherwise germs go everywhere and so they have to just throw them away. Oh my gosh. So we coordinate with working with these restaurants and hotels to divert the crayons from landfills and we work with two organizations, one being crayon initiative and their focus is to again set up boxes all throughout iHOPs and Denny's and to collect the crayons from the children that are broken down and we remelt them to brand new ones to give them to children in hospitals. Oh, that's so sweet and you know hospital kids. I think we've got some pictures of the crayon initiative too, right? We can look at it and yeah, there you go. There's one of the boxes. This is crayon collection. Yeah. This is crayon collection. So there's actually two different ones. Yeah. Okay, so tell us about both of them. The second organization is crayon collection and of course we also focus on diverting crayons from landfills and we get the crayons from the restaurants and we get the crayons that are still usable and not broken and we give them to low-income schools all throughout Hawaii. Yes, which is super awesome because yearly teachers spend about $900. This is what statistics tells us. Wow. Out of their pockets to make sure that their classrooms have things like crayons. So when we go in and we take those one-time use crayons from places like iHOPs and Denny's like we said, we're able to give those teachers crayons for their students. Right, then and there. Yeah. Which is so important for kids. All of these are everything. I know I was playing with crayons all day for the last three weeks. I've been playing with crayons. Absolutely. And they're so much fun and it's so important for kids especially in hospitals that have nothing to do. Exactly. It's a creative outlet to express themselves and how they're feeling. Right. A lot of the times we grow up and we don't really know what new emotions we're experiencing. So crayons can be that outlet to you know hopefully for therapy. Oh absolutely. Statistics shows that crayons in coloring is very therapeutic for younger children. So I could only imagine if my daughter was in the hospital that those crayons would help her as she goes to her world to recovery. Sure and not just hospitals I would think in therapy settings too. Definitely. For I know working with kids like I did for many many years and half the time they can't you know verbalize what they're feeling. But you can hand them a piece of paper and some crayons and they can draw what they're feeling. Absolutely. And it's a lot easier for them to get that you know outlet which is such an important thing for kids to get. Oh yes. So locally one of our one big hospitals that actually gets those crayons is Shriners. Oh nice. And they get it from the crayon initiative. So it's that's like super awesome because we know that what we're doing is not only something that we're doing globally but it's something that's impacting Hawaii locally because our concept is really to what act local. It's think global and act local. I like that. That's one of the models for the entire time. Okay I like that. Yes. Wait think global act local. Because it all starts with us if we want to make a difference in our environment. Our saying between us is that there's no planet B so there's no plan B. I love that. Exactly. I get about that when we were going back and forth a little bit. There's no plan B. There's no planet B. Exactly. No plan B. We gotta take care of what we got. And it takes everyone coming together as a community to make that global effort to cut down on straws and make the effort to make our environment a better place. Right. No more plastic bags. Exactly. All of those and every little thing that each person does goes together and then yes it does builds up and then pretty soon everybody's doing it. And we can really save our earth and that you know out there I'm always talking about how we're not alone no one's alone and and this is a perfect example of how each one of us can do that little bit to help and once we do that it all adds up and then pretty soon we're golden right. Oh yeah and climate change is such a giant thing. Oh it's real. It's real. We say at the Miss Earth organization and that's the organization that I'm with and I have a privilege of serving with our president Laura and her heart is to change the world one day at a time and that whole global act local it came from them this summer to allow our girls in the pageant because I am an executive director for Hawaii, Guam and Alaska. It allowed those girls to come together and put their voice on something that's actually changing the world which is an awesome way to do it. Another thing I wanted to tell you was our model at Miss Earth is beauties for a cause. Oh nice. Yeah our staff organization they're really big on making sure that the world understands that it's not just a whole bunch of beautiful faces that are participating inside of our pageant in the organization but they have a cause that they're trying to get out there that's going to change the world. It is changing the world. So does each girl have her own cause is that the way that works then? Yes. So like you're okay so what made you pick this one? You said did you just hear about it and go wow that's for me or what? Well it's interesting because I again my background is working with anti-sex trafficking and that was my platform for four years. I was going in strong and I still do participate in it but I was googling okay I know I want to join this pageant but I want to broaden my expertise and I decided to just google platforms you know and crayons connect with me because when I was younger I wanted to be a fashion designer for the longest time and I was she already knows I had my own company launched. I was going to be on the market at New York Fashion Week and I would sketch my designs with crayons so I automatically connected with it I decided that as a teen I can not only inspire the youth but I can also connect with adults and through this platform I've gotten the opportunity to connect with managers at Denny's iHops outback steak houses and as a teen it's a little bit kind of nerve-wracking but it's also learning experience to just network and get out there. You just have to like walk in cold and go excuse me how are you doing? We're just like hey what do you do with your crayon? Why do you care? You're 16. Yeah but she's actually made a huge difference as she's been collaborating with multiple restaurants locally like iHop we mentioned that earlier Denny's it'll be Tuesdays. Outback Steakhouse Applebee's all those places here locally have been really joining in the effort to make our footprint bigger in saving the earth which is like really big for me right now is because what if there's nothing there for our children to experience in the future who's going to come to Hawaii if Hawaii is just the beaches aren't as pristine as they could be because we're not taking care of them or the land. The Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch is literally right in between California and Hawaii so a lot and it's twice the size of Texas so a lot of the trash winds up on our shores and that's why I constantly promote on my Instagram hey participate in a local beach cleanup you're going to the beach anyway might as well clean it up oh yeah leave with the bag always leave with more than you bring yes you know there used to always be signs you know always bring back what you bring out oh yeah never leave behind what you brought or whatever and those are like no no no i want to change those signs definitely leave with more than you bring yes because there's always extra you like my son has started a thing in Alabama on my shores down there you have to pick up at least 15 pieces of plastic every time you go oh that's awesome right that's awesome so it's he's just starting to get his friends and he's you know putting it all over facebook and wow it's like you go buddy I didn't know he's impacted at his level and that's exactly what we mean at Ms. Earth is that anyone I mean it doesn't even have to be just participants in Ms. Earth and you don't have to be a green activist yeah it's just having that attitude and that heart to care about changing the world and keeping it a better for the people that will come after us right or anybody who's a parent who's got kids absolutely crayons and they're just going to chuck them because they're broken crayons most people do chuck them we had a project this past year with girl scouts and I'll let jay talk a little bit about it we had about 200 local girl scouts they brought in their crayons they listened to her talk about reduce reuse and recycle and it was huge really big and those that little bit of information bringing them up to speed as far as educational and awareness allowed them to go out and even make a change and she was able to distribute what patches yeah so I after they listened to my talk they received a crayon initiative patch for their girl scout sash and me being a daisy back in the day yeah I girl scouts for life it felt good to give back to my history and my roots absolutely girl scouts for life I was a senior scout so I gave it to you on our program my brother is an eagle scout oh yeah I'll do my best yes and not only that when we give them the training they can receive a patch from crayon initiative but they also can receive a patch from crayon collection they both organizations have produced patches because they both are passionate about getting the word out concerning crayons and not allowing them to go to the landfill right both founders of each organization are super passionate and we love to support them and supporting both of them it's good that they're not like competing or no they have two different um mission sets you know one is focused on making sure the crayons that are usable get into schools that's crayon collection okay and then crayon initiative is focused on taking the broken crayons remelting them down and getting those out to hospital so two different organizations still accomplishing diverting crayons from land yeah right oh wow I think we have a video we can watch a little bit about this I think I think we have time to watch that crayons themselves are a powerful tool in the fact that everybody knows how to use them it starts with opening the box and that pop of the box and then you get the smell of a crayon and you don't have to explain to them what to do with this tool they just pick it up and they start coloring crayons seem to have that way with everybody that it either takes them back to a childhood memory or as a child they just know how to use them the idea for the crayon initiative came from out at a restaurant with my kids and they were coloring on the menu so then as a supply chain guy kind of question what would they do with these crayons afterwards and we figured out that they just throw them away so we wanted to figure out how we can take that resource that was being thrown away and put it into something else that was more meaningful we want to get restaurants and schools and individuals to give back their crayons to us where we work with groups to do the sorting break them down into colors and then from there we melt them and create new crayons we'll box them up into eight packs with six colors of the rainbow plus normally a pink and a brown color in an eight pack box and then those boxes get donated back to children's hospitals what i've learned about hospitalized kids kids with chronic illness is that they want to play they want to go to school they want to have friends they want to do their hair they want to paint their nails they want to be a superhero just like a normally developing child they're no different creativity in play is so very important because they're in an environment that is abnormal so when you give them the tools to sit down and really express what they're thinking and what they're feeling and what they're experiencing it's very powerful it means everything to them to actually have their own packet crayons with tips on them most of the patients take our crayons home with them because it's the one good memory of that hospital stay and remember that it brought them happiness there's an unlimited supply of crayons coming in and so if we can keep taking those crayons and making new ones we can make sure that every children's hospital gets the art supplies that they need and the resources that they need through these crayons that was amazing gotta love that people are doing these kind of programs for kids for the environment for all of this well we need to take a break but we're going to be right back so please don't go anywhere okay I'm Cynthia Sinclair this is Finding Respect in the Chaos Hi I'm Rusty Kamori host of Beyond the Lines I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years and we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championship this show is based on my book which is also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence achieving and sustaining success and finding greatness if you're a student parent sports or business person and want to improve your life and the lives of people around you tune in and join me on Mondays at 11 a.m as we go Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii Aloha 各州月曜日 Welcome back to Finding Respect in the Chaos I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and I am here with Jade and Jasmine Baker two amazing women and we've been talking about the crayon initiative and the crayon collection programs and platforms that they have but I want to talk a little bit more about the exciting news that you have that gorgeous crown on your head and why you have it and where you got it and all the details and I know Jasmine you just were telling us in the first half about how you're on the board one of the directors yeah so not on the board yet so I'm not so much on the board but the staff and our president Laura she trusted me to take care of Hawaii as a director or what we call now a regional coordinator which is super exciting but not only Hawaii I've adopted two other locations which is Alaska and Guam so most of the Pacific territory I'm now responsible for and what I do in short is I come in contact with girls who really want to make an impact and change the world and that's why the model is again like I said earlier beauties for a cause these girls want to get their voice out there and they want to save our planet you'll often hear us as we chat here today we'll say earth moments that's our time when we had an earth moment to figure out okay I can help change the planet so that's pretty much what I do in a nutshell that is amazing so just recently you were in Vegas I was left with the crown so tell us about that all right came with a crown because it's a part of my regional stash so I represent Pacific Ocean all right okay I also live in Hawaii so I had the opportunity to represent the whole region oh wow that was pretty cool I competed against and with 27 other teens that were all beauties for a cause absolutely and it was just a really big learning experience because I've never been surrounded by that many beautiful ladies that just wanted to get out there and advocate for something and that's one of the many things I love about the system is absolutely it inspires and encourages women to just get out there educate themselves because I'm going to be honest before joining this pageant I wasn't the most environmentally aware but it's opened my eyes to the amount of change that I can produce all right just my age and level yeah but I took home best overall an interview and I'm not surprised I was standing there but yeah it was a blessing and then I also got third runner up wow that's awesome oh my gosh out of all of those girls yes that's remarkable so can you come up with any of the do you remember some of the other platforms that some of the other girls had um some people worked with recycling plastics others got more in specific with um microplastics on the oceans and the beaches and stuff especially in the california region invasive invasive plants and species and trees yeah one of the girls that I was rehearsing with she was in the elite division so there's through divisions that we um that were hosted in vegas so you have your elite miss you have your miss and you have your teen so all these age divisions were there I was rehearsing next to one of the elite misses awesome and she had poison ivy bite on her leg but like yeah and I moved up her arm because before pageant and this is how passionate these girls are and this is what just sparked my passion even more that I knew I was in the right place doing the right thing at the right time I'm talking to her as they're doing an environmental project so now they're in vegas competing but um again our staff set up this awesome environmental project for the girls to be able to give back so they've traveled out here I'm having this conversation with this awesome girl I've never met before because pageants built what they built journeys and memories and she's telling me how she worked in um the forest clearing out the hiking way so that these evasive trees that had grown in and messed things up they were there separating them before nationals and she's like I got poison ivy all up my legs all up my arms and I said wow they'll talk about passionate you know what I mean oh yeah exactly in heels and competing six inch heels yeah dedication I love it it it sparked something in me to say you know what we're doing the right thing you need to get out there you know and really make a change yes absolutely that's my that's my goal too is to make a change to make a difference to get my voice heard that people know they're not alone exactly hope absolutely and the chaos and the chaos exactly we can just find it and sometimes you have to look a little harder and then sometimes I meet women like you and I just go yes there's hope for the world you know oh yeah and I think that's an important thing to say to the world that there is hope oh absolutely and it's easy to get discouraged and to get downhearted about stuff and especially about climate change oh yeah sort of things but when I see people like you jade and I meet girls like you that that have such a spark and a passion for these kinds of things makes me know maybe the next generation will be okay oh yes because sometimes I worry about and then I maybe that's two of us that's two of us well you're doing all kinds of stuff too though with gems and I want you to explain what gems is oh absolutely so to our viewers oh yes so gems girls in part and mentor for success it's a sorority of girls who are focused on stem most people that know me know that I do a lot of engineering I'm an engineer stem science math no science technology engineering mathematics what do you know I got it because that is so important and it will be prevalent in the future right now most girls that are in school and ten percent of those girls are even interested in stem jobs highly technical jobs so what I do is by having this organization I'm able to make stem fun and I'm able to make stem girly you know and just put my creativity inside of it and those girls that join the organization learn a little bit more but not only that they give back to the community the way that they should so I'm able to really roll in to this the miss earth platform that I have personally because I have my platform she has hers but minds is the power of youth mentorship I'm able to make sure of you I think oh absolutely I think we do I'm able to still be beautiful as you are my goodness you are beautiful we have some pictures of the pageant too right I don't want to miss all these beautiful so that was teen miss west coast her name is Carly she was the bomb.com she helped me through everything because it was like my second national the bomb.com by the way she's the local girl and then Miss Washington and Louisiana we were all pretty close throughout the pageant too and it was just awesome to be surrounded by those girls. Nice I think we've got a bunch of we got some of you that was during runway so that dress is sponsored by Ashley Loren and so are the yeah it's just the dress yeah the dress she's our national yes our national sponsor yes and the earrings also was also everyone's dress got sponsored by the earrings yours is way better and I believe that I think that was when I got called for top 15 oh nice so I was shocked how composed you are though oh my gosh you look gorgeous oh my gosh we were excited yeah absolutely look at that no is that one sponsored to you by someone or did you get to pick that one out it was sponsored by true elegance my local store that is true elegance is right I wanted to go for a ball gown because I'm kind of petite and I didn't want to look so small on stage I was like I need some volume give me that thing you definitely got some volume exactly no I knew I didn't want to miss out on these pictures and stuff but I do want to hear a little bit more about gems so that that girls that are listening or moms that are listening or even dads too hey can help to get their kids involved in this their daughters can get involved in in gems oh absolutely how do they go about doing that okay so they can also go to our Instagram page our Facebook page is Jim's Honolulu and they can go to the website www gems honolulu.com and they can inquire and then they'll get me or one of my helpers on the phone talk about it and get their daughter or son enrolled that sounds perfect and it sounds like such an amazing program oh yeah that we really need since things are going towards technology now everything is going more towards technology absolutely so it's important to get women involved in it so that men don't dominate the field anymore exactly that's how it leads to women getting lower incomes and all of that getting paid less getting less opportunities yes so the younger you start right yes better your chances of being successful later on and also being that 80 of the jobs in the future will be STEM jobs it allows our girls to get ready for it in our guys and be on the forefront of the problem and enjoying it and hopefully they'll be giving back like I gave back to them and it'll just be that spiral effect right oh my gosh which is exactly what we hope for right yes absolutely that's always what we hope for I am just hoping that the crayon collection and the crayon initiative we actually have boxes oh look at boxes to show see that's what you're looking for people so this is the crayon collection box and you'll see these throughout low income schools that help us out in our initiative of collecting the crayons so and then you'll see these little babies along with the boxes my daughter showed you you'll see those at some of the local restaurants they have one-time use crayons and this is crayon initiative and crayon initiative is the one that does the melting down and remaking yes and these are the ones that they take them and they give them to title one schools and give them to the hospitals and things like that right they focus on low-income schools low-income schools and then this one focuses on the hospital and the hospitals and stuff that is awesome I know we're just about out of time oh yeah I wish we had more time it seems like we always have so much fun I know we do so in a little while you're gonna have to come back again and tell me how things are going keep us all posted yes on everything about I wish you just the best of luck the best of the best of luck thank you so I think you deserve every accolade that you get without a doubt you are gorgeous and you have your head and your heart in the right place absolutely that's important yeah and hit me up on instagram miss hawaii earth if you want to participate in our upcoming year pageant 2020 there you go 2020 thank you jasmine oh thank you for having us thank you so much jade thank you so much I'm so glad you guys came out and I'm glad that everybody out there joined us this was a really fun show to have and I really I hope that you guys will follow up on this and find out more about the crayon initiative and the crayon collection sorry and gems and miss earth this specific earth all of it it's all wonderful and I'm so glad you all joined us so I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and this is finding respect in the chaos please come and see me again next week