Vans has announced Moanalua High School as the winner of the 13th annual Vans Custom Culture competition and honoree of $50,000 for their school’s art program. The remaining 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 high school art programs.
New this year, each of the top five schools will receive an artist mentorship lesson from one of Vans’ art ambassadors: Tony Whlgh, Sydney G. James, Jay Howell, Todd Francish, MIch MIller, Kelly Breez, Camilo Medina, Noah Humes, O.J. Hays, 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.
The brand thanks partners for empowering this 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, who awarded all participating students a gift card to their 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 USD back to high school art programs to date.
