As its name suggests, the arts education organization Trash for Teaching got its start with, well, rubbish. Six years ago, Steve and Kathy Stanton, owners of a manufacturing company in Los Angeles, donated some of the excess materials from their specialty packaging business to their son’s preschool, for art projects. Seeing the imaginative and unlikely ways in which children used the material– die-cut cardboard, ribbons, and tubes otherwise destined for a landfill– the Stantons were inspired to bring more material to other local schools, many of which lacked funding for arts classes.

The response was so strong– from teachers and students alike– that the Stantons eventually sought donations from other product manufacturers in the area. In scouring the trash of the manufacturing industry, they’d hit upon a gold mine of free art materials. Today, Trash for Teaching maintains a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles filled floor-to-ceiling with “dumpster diamonds” –including excess fabric swatches, spools for thread, tail-ends of ribbon, paper and newsprint reels, and other would-be castaways. The organization also commandeers a small fleet of “Treasure Trucks” that transport materials to area schools.

Inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy–an Italian educational approach that stresses the importance of creative arts and shared experiences in early childhood development–Trash for Teaching now partners with local schools and youth organizations throughout Los Angeles to provide children with unique, low-cost arts programs using non-traditional materials. Through their work, the Stantons encourage children to reconsider notions of what is new and old, trash and treasure, and they’re challenging ideas of what art itself can be. By their thinking, a cardboard tube and fabric swath present as much an opportunity for creativity as a canvas and paint.

Despite the Stantons’ success, and a multi-year partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, Trash for Teaching programs have suffered under the same funding cuts effecting arts programs in public schools across the country. “We’ve been bumping along,” says Steve Stanton, “trying to reinvent ourselves until schools get budgets for arts and cultural programs.”

In the meantime, Trash for Teaching keeps its doors open for privately funded arts projects and for a “Warehouse Program” that affords paying members access to a vast supply of “dumpster diamond” plunder at discounted bulk rates. Additionally, the organization raises funds for its programs through specialty “castaway kits” and found-object houseware sold at specialty stores and online. “Right now it’s about building awareness,” says Stanton. “We need to get the word out– to teachers and schools– that Trash for Teaching not only exists, but that our low-cost art programs are successful.”