A lesson in giving
Two groups making it easy to help students and teachers, one pencil at a time.
By Dana Wilkosz
You wouldn’t expect a baker to produce a cake without an oven or a pan, and yet, all too often, that’s pretty much what teachers are expected to do: Provide a rich learning environment for students without the necessary equipment to do so. As a result, many teachers end up dipping into their own pockets to provide classroom materials. Here are two organizations working to provide teachers—and kids—with the tools they need for school success.
DonorsChoose.org
When third grade teacher Alycia Zimmerman came up with the idea of growing a vegetable garden behind the public school where she teaches in Manhattan, she knew that finding the funds for the project would be nearly impossible. "My principal was supportive of the idea, but she couldn’t possibly have made it happen within our school budget," says Zimmerman. So she turned to DonorsChoose.org, a national nonprofit that lets teachers post classroom project requests, and allows donors—who vary from individuals to large companies—to choose which proposals they want to support. Within a matter of weeks, Zimmerman had her garden project funded, and she and her fellow teachers have had two more garden proposals financed. "We’ve now got five raised beds filled with organic vegetables, and thousands of dollars worth of gardening materials for the students to use—most of whom have never even had some of these vegetables," says Zimmerman.
DonorsChoose.org was started in 2000 after teacher Charles Best and some of his colleagues at Wings Academy in the Bronx were experiencing first-hand the lack of learning materials available to public school teachers. "A lot of us were paying for copy paper and pencils ourselves, but we didn’t have the money for the really good projects, like field trips or new books, that would bring the subject matter to life," says Best. So, they came up with the idea for a website that works like classified ads for classrooms in need. Here’s how it works: A teacher submits a project request to the site, detailing the resources needed, or an activity she’d like her students to participate in. Once approved by the site, the proposal is posted, and donors can search for projects by location or subject matter, and then give as much money as they’d like towards the project (the average project costs around $500, and many proposals are funded by multiple donors). Once fully-funded, DonorsChoose.org purchases the requested resources and ships them directly to the classroom, ensuring that the money is used as intended.
To date, DonorsChoose.org has funded more than 200,000 projects and raised nearly $85 million for classrooms in need. In the 2010-2011 school year alone, more than 350,000 individuals, along with corporations, donated nearly $33 million to classrooms nationwide. And for teachers like Alycia Zimmerman, it’s made all the difference. "I’ve used DonorsChoose.org since I started teaching and it’s allowed me to do so much with my students that I would never have been able to do otherwise," says Zimmerman. "To be able to get these resources for them—it’s just incredible." Learn how you can make a financial contribution to the classroom of your choice at donorschoose.org.
Adopt-a-Classroom
It was while mentoring at a school for preschoolers with physical and mental disabilities in Miami that corporate attorney James Rosenberg realized how few resources were available to the teachers in the school. "Seeing how much of their own money teachers were using on supplies made me to want to create something that would make it easy for people like me to help teachers," says Rosenberg. With the help of law school friend Max Holtzman, Rosenberg left his law job in 1998 to start Adopt-a-Classroom, an online nonprofit designed to provide people around the country with an easy and direct way to help teachers in their communities.
Through Adopt-A-Classroom, an individual or organization selects a classroom to adopt, and then makes a contribution for the teacher to use on needed resources and materials. Donors can search for a classroom by geography or the name of a school or teacher, and if they don’t have a preference, Adopt-a-Classroom will partner them with an underserved classroom in the donor’s community. Donations can be made in any amount over $25, which allows for more than one person to adopt the same classroom, and the money’s put into an online account where teachers can use the credit to buy materials, such as books, markers, calculators, and educational games. The donor then receives a report that shows exactly how their contribution was spent.
In the 13 years since the organization was founded, Rosenberg has seen roughly 60,000 classrooms adopted through citizen philanthropists and local businesses. "We pride ourselves on the fact that there’s a real relationship that forms between the donor and the classroom," says Rosenberg. "Teachers know there’s someone in the community they can rely upon." See how your family can adopt your own local classroom at adoptaclassroom.org.
