Daily Press file photo The grand prize winner of the Design-an-Ad contest in its very first year — 1993 — was for Drifters Restaurant and was drawn by then-fourth-grader Matt Rose. The contest is now in its 33rd year and raises money for the Newspapers in Education program.

ESCANABA –Schoolchildren will soon put their creativity to use to design advertisements for local businesses. A select handful will run in a special newspaper insert on Saturday, March 31.

The “Design-an-Ad” contest has been organized annually by the Daily Press since 1993 and benefits the Newspapers in Education program, which provides newspapers to area classrooms.

Businesses that choose to participate in Design-an-Ad buy advertising space in the Daily Press, then fill out a form with information to be given to area classrooms: the business name, address, website, what services or products they provide, and – if applicable – a slogan or tagline.

One of the options available to business owners is to choose a school, grade level, or specific class they would like to design their advertisements; otherwise, the requests will be sent en masse to multiple classrooms. The deadline for businesses to sign up is this Friday, Feb. 28.

Once the kid-drawn ads are received by the Daily Press, the business owners will select the winning designs to be published in the March 31 special section. In addition to seeing their work in print, the students whose ads are chosen will also receive prizes.