At Out Of Skool (OOS), we don’t see business and charity as opposites. They are simply different ways of creating value and allowing resources to flow. Business creates the power to sustain. Charity reminds us what that power is ultimately for.

 

Traditional charity can sometimes fall into a familiar pattern: I have ➡️ You lack ➡️ I help. Without meaning to, this can create an imbalance — one person becomes the giver, while another becomes the person being helped.

 

But real life is rarely that simple. You might walk into a school in a remote mountain community carrying money, supplies or opportunities. But a child there might give you a drawing, a story, a song, or simply a different way of seeing the world — something that stays with you and perhaps even changes the direction of your own life.

 

So, who is really helping whom?

 

At OOS, we believe in business as a force for good. To us, meaningful social impact isn’t simply about saying, “We help children in mountain communities.” It is about creating opportunities where everyone has something of value to contribute.

 

An artist doesn’t receive money simply because they “need help”; they earn royalties because their work creates value. A child doesn’t have to be just the recipient of someone else’s charity — they can be a creator, a participant and a storyteller. And a customer isn’t simply making a donation to “do something good”; they are choosing a product they genuinely love and use, while their purchase helps that value continue to flow.

 

At OOS, we also believe that every piece of art has the power to tell a story, inspire connection, and make a positive impact. That’s why we created the OOS Artist Collaboration Project — an ongoing initiative supporting artists and children from mountain communities by creating opportunities for their creativity to be seen, shared, and valued.

 

Through this project, selected artworks become part of the OOS Carabiner Mug Collection, allowing each design — and the story behind it — to travel far beyond where it was created. Participating artists receive ongoing royalties from the sales of products featuring their work, creating a direct and lasting connection between creativity and income.

 

Creativity Lives Everywhere

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Many mountain communities are home to extraordinary creativity, yet opportunities and resources to explore that creativity can be limited.

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OOS founder Lois Hong has spent years travelling through mountain communities, regularly visiting schools, orphanages, and monasteries along the way. Through the children she has met, she noticed something again and again: a genuine curiosity and love for art and music, even in places where access to creative education and materials can be limited. Many children love to sing, but have little or no access to music lessons. They love to draw and create, yet art classes, musical instruments, paints, brushes, and other creative materials may be difficult to come by. These encounters became part of the inspiration behind the OOS Artist Collaboration Project.

 

As part of the project, we periodically return to schools, orphanages, monasteries, and communities in mountain regions to spend time creating together. We sing, make music, draw, paint, share what we know, and learn from one another. Some of the children’s illustrations are then selected to become part of official OOS Carabiner Mug Collections — turning their drawings into something that can travel far beyond the mountains and allowing their creativity and stories to be discovered by people around the world.

 

For us, this is not simply about putting a child’s drawing on a product. It is about creating more opportunities for children to explore their creativity, giving their work a platform to be seen and celebrated, and building meaningful connections between people who may live thousands of kilometres apart.

 

Through the OOS Artist Collaboration Project, we hope every OOS mug can become more than a product — a bridge between cultures, a celebration of creativity, and a small way of carrying stories from mountain communities into the wider world.

 

Every purchase helps a creator grow. Every mug carries a little more hope.

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