Pencils.com hosts Kids Art Day

Pencils.com hosts Kids Art Day at the Ballpark this Sunday

The Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific announces "Kids Art Day at the Ballpark" to be held this Sunday at the Pacific Tigers Baseball home game against UC Riverside (1:00 pm, Klein Family Field). The initiative is driven by Pencils.com, which is collaboration between California Cedar Products' California Republic Stationers marketing division and Eberhardt School of Business MBA and undergraduate students.

The event is the first locally-based promotion in collaboration with local schools that was created as a joint effort with the baseball program to encourage local elementary students to participate in an art project with a fun and interesting twist. Students from local elementary schools including Presentation, Kohl Open, Claudia Landeen and John Muir are participating in the art contest and event. The objective is to build involvement on Pencils.com and develop feedback from local teachers on the Web site through its Story of Pencils lesson plan series and the Teach & Learn channel, a resource for both students and teachers.

Elementary students can participate in Kids Art Day at the Ballpark whether or not they entered the art contest on Pencils.com. The first 200 children arriving at the game will receive a sample set of Spangle Coloring and other California Republic Pencils along with a baseball themed coloring page. A raffle will award a grand prize and three runner-ups with pencil variety packages, including wood boxed sets of California Republic's premier line of Palomino Color pencils, sharpeners, erasers, and deluxe, mixed-grade pencils. Winning entrants from the contest will be displayed on the jumbotron during the game. President of California Cedar Products, Charles Berolzheimer II hopes teachers will learn to use Pencils.com as a tool.

"The Teach & Learn channel offers a place for Teachers to learn, communicate and grow," said Berolzheimer, who acknowledged that the site is not just a place to buy great pencils; it's also a social community for educators, writers, artists, and more. Teachers can share lesson plans, submit entries to themed drawing contests, create private groups for their classes, and earn "pencil points" with each pencils.com purchase.

The "Pencil Pushers" course was recently added to the Eberhardt School of Business curriculum as Applied Entrepreneurship: Growing a Niche Brand Business, to enable students to participate in another real world learning opportunity. Students in this course are responsible for helping in management and operations of the online business. A share of revenues from Pencils.com sales are devoted to supporting community arts and educational development programs.