How many people do you know who wear Vans? A couple of people in your neighborhood? Some of your friends? All of your friends?

Well hey, here’s a chance for you to design your own shoe for Vans!

Vans Custom Culture, another official website for Vans, has released news about an upcoming contest. According to the Vans,“Custom Culture is a national high school shoe customization contest where schools from all over the United States compete for a chance to win money for their art programs.”

Gayle Martin, Vista del Lago’s Drawing and Painting and AP Studio Art teacher said that they only chose 2,000 schools across the nation to participate in this contest and that she’s excited for our school to get a chance to compete. “I thought it was like getting tickets to Green Day or something,” Martin said.

Each school will be given four pairs of blank Vans sneakers to customize, and  then “Vans sneakers [need] to be customized in four themes: Art, Music, Action Sports and Local Flavor,” according to the Vans website the Vans website.

‘Local flavor’ “…is like something indigenous to this area,”said Ms. Martin. She also said that they will be only painting one pair of shoes for each individual category.

After the shoes are designed, they will be sent to a regional competition for judging. If the shoes win, they will be taken to New York to be judged, and a picture of the shoes will go online for the public to vote on their favorite.

The top five finalists will be flown out to New York for the final event where the winner will be chosen. The winner will get $50,000 dollars for their school’s art program as well as getting their shoes produced and sold in Vans stores.

The contest isn’t just for art students alone; it’s also for the whole school to come and participate. “Anybody who wants to can enter,” Martin said. “If anybody wants to get together as a group, or wants to do it individually, that’s up to them, but what we’re going to do is take the templates that get entered and the art teachers will judge for which ones we think are strongest. Then the ones who win will be given real shoes.”

Martin said that if she won the $50,000 dollars, she would, “get some type of projection system,” in her room with “room-darkening shades” because it’s hard for her students to see anything on her projection screen whenever she wants to show them a slide show. However, despite the prize money, “The biggest thing is just the fun, actually creating shoes and being involved in the whole creative process that goes into it,” said Martin.

If you would like to go ahead and grab a template for the shoes, or if you have any questions, please email Martin at [email protected] or see her in room G201. Martin would like the drawn templates in before February 14th. Good luck!