VANS CELEBRATES HIGH SCHOOL DESIGN COMPETITION
Vans has announced that Moanalua High School, of Honolulu, Hawaii, is the winner of the 13th annual Vans Custom Culture competition, and recipient of $50,000 for the school’s art program. Four finalists — Central High School, Avella Jr. Sr. High School, Sisters High School, and Wrangell High School — will also receive limited-edition Vans gifts and $15,000 to support their art programs.
New this year, each of the top five schools will also receive artist mentorship lessons from one of Vans’ art ambassadors: Tony Whlgn, Sydney G. James, Jay Howell, Todd Francis, Mich Miller, Kelly Breez, Camilo Medina, Noah Humes, O.J. Hays, Tony Whlgn, Sara Yukiko Mon, and David Heo.
To celebrate this incredible moment, students at Moanalua High School received a surprise party on their high school campus, including a special guest appearance from singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs to celebrate at the school’s campus.”Moanalua’s graduation is this Friday, May 20. Knowing that I ended my senior year with that kind of thing… I’m really happy and I wanted to cry happy tears,” said Jaidalyn Kamaunu, a senior at Moanalua.”We worked nearly every single day after school for about one to two hours a day. There were days on the weekends, we would dedicate a whole entire seven-hour workday just to work on the shoes,” noted another Moanalua student, 11th grader Dianne Cabico.
Vans thanks its partners for empowering the competition, including Yoobi, Vans’ exclusive art supplies partner who provided gift cards to all the participating schools for them to purchase much-needed art supplies, Scholarship America for community-based scholarship programs, and Journeys, which awarded all participating students a gift card to its store in recognition of their accomplishments.Vans Custom Culture has reached hundreds of thousands of students, continuing to show how impactful art programs are by donating over $1,110,000 to high school art programs. Please visit Vans Custom Culture to learn how to register a school for next year’s competition, or follow us on social at @VansCustomCulture for design inspiration and how-to lessons from Vans art ambassadors.
