Vans Custom Culture is a national contest, in its second year, that allows students to design their own collection of Vans sneakers for the chance to win $50,000 towards their high school art program and have their designs sold in 2012. With over 400 schools who submitted designs in all 50 states, Brooklyn’s Bushwick School for Social Justice is one of 50 schools who were selected by Vans to move onto the next round.

The last day of voting is Monday, so students Roy Roman, Anthony Castro, Chris Fret and their teacher, Krystyna Printup stopped by LIVE to talk about the contest, show us their sneaker designs and urge people to vote for them.

The voting is broken up by five regions with the Bushwick School for Social Justice [a Make the Road New York partner] under the Northeast along with The Ward Melville High School, also in New York.

After the top five schools are chosen, they will then all come together at the final event on June 2nd in New York City at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. There, a judging panel of industry experts will deliberate and select the winning school. Judges this year include artist, Mister Cartoon; musician, Jordan Buckley; skateboarder, Tony Alva; and fashion expert, Nicole Young.

Last year’s winning school was the Rio Rancho high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico who were able to use their funds to purchase SLR cameras, high res projectors and other expensive, yet important tools for art students. With the lack of funding for schools and the arts being so prevalent in the media, I thought you may be interested in reporting on a company who is engaging students to enter a contest that can directly benefit them. Now everyone has a chance to help propel the schools to the final round.

Vans is taking action to ensure that arts education remains a core subject in public schools across the country. They believe that there is no art to education without Art in education. They are hoping other companies will follow suit and do what they can to put art back in the classrooms.

To watch the video, please click here.