By Heather Ruenz
Editor
It’s a way to offer “a new higher purpose for coffee cups,” Deb Blackwell, director of Studio 84 in Whitewater, said.
The idea is in response to “concerns over a certain company’s unadorned red holiday coffee cups. Here at Studio 84 we decided to do something about it and created the Red Cup Challenge,” Blackwell said.
Here’s how it works:
Wherever you get your cup of Joe (Blackwell said the studio will not play favorites), drink from it – and rinse it out, paint it red, or green or blue, decorate it with some holiday spirit – whatever that means from painting, using markers, glitter, ribbon, stickers, funny puff balls or even Cheetos, if you wish but be creative and keep if family friendly.
Once the cup is adorned, bring it to Studio 84, 121 W. Center St., Whitewater, and donate what you paid for that cup of coffee, or, as Blackwell suggested, “just round it up to $5 to support three causes – Studio 84’s artists with disabilities, the Whitewater Food Pantry and Autism.”
Studio staff will take a photo of the donator with his or her cup and post it to Twitter and Facebook. Once all of the cups have been collected, the studio will build a sculpture from the cups.
The second part of this challenge is for “all sellers of coffee cups, red or otherwise. We will keep track of where the cups are coming from. Your challenge, if you should accept it is to donate a matching or otherwise amount per cup from your business,” Blackwell explained.
Two local coffee joints – the SweetSpot Café and SweetSpot Bakehouse have already signed on and agreed to match up to $5 per cup for each one donated from the Sweet Spot locations. To make the deal even sweeter, SweetSpot is also offering a contest for a $20 gift card.
“To reach our goal of $3,000 we only need 600 coffee cups with a donation of $5 each,” Blackwell said. “So spread the joy and get into the holiday giving spirit by supporting three good causes.”
