URI Child Development Centers’ annual Art Exchange collects cash, food donations for food bank

December 11, 2025
URI Child Development Centers students Lily (right) and Marit display the candleholders they and their fellow preschool students created, along with a host of other artworks, as gifts for donations to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
URI Child Development Centers students Lily (right) and Marit display the candleholders they and their fellow preschool students created, along with a host of other artworks, as gifts for donations to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

Preschoolers offer custom works of art in exchange for donations to the RI Community Food Bank

The University of Rhode Island Child Development Centers raised more than $1,000 and collected several boxes of non-perishable food items as it hosted its annual Art Exchange in the Memorial Union last week to benefit the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Students of the preschool, along with Director Jessica MacLeod and her staff of teachers and student interns, offered handmade works of art as a thank-you for donations.

The preschoolers, ages three to five, interacted with passers-by in the Memorial Union lobby, asking them to donate to the food bank in exchange for a one-of-a-kind, handmade gift. The students spent weeks creating colorful bookmarks, candle holders, postcards, shoelaces, and key chains, which they handed out in exchange for donations of cash or non-perishable food items.

The Child Development Centers of the University of Rhode Island offer high quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood education programs for children ages three to five years. Accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the full-day preschool programs—with two locations, on URI’s Kingston Campus and in the Shepherd Building in downtown Providence—provide programs for pre-primary children, serve as a high-quality teacher training facility, support research in the field of early childhood education, and serve the community as a model of best practice in early care and education through outreach and advocacy.

The CDC is part of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at URI, which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in areas related to working with children and families. As the campus “lab school,” the CDC serves as a resource for early childhood educators in the state. Educators are welcome to contact the centers with questions or requests to observe. The staff also participates in community outreach through participation in professional organizations devoted to young children and by presenting at state and regional conferences.

Learn more about the CDC: https://web.uri.edu/child-development-centers/