In the past week, I have been inundated with teacher wish lists and requests for supplies. If you visit any county, including mine, you can find a social media page for teachers who are requesting supplies for their classrooms. These supplies range from notebooks and paper to flexible seating and rugs for the floors.
Donor's Choose, a non-profit created by a teacher, has oodles of projects submitted by teachers who are trying to get their classrooms organized, provide books for the little ones, furnish a depleted gym locker with equipment or, as in my case, find the money to print my new, revamped school newspaper.
This time, more than any during the school year, teachers become salesman. How do you entice people to donate their hard earned money to help you created a classroom or fund a project that is all for someone else's child? What words can you use that will make your request tug at the heartstrings of enough people so you can get what you think you need to make your year run smoothly?
One thing I learned from being in the newspaper business is a little about marketing. Don't post your request and think the money is going to come rolling in. It doesn't happen that way. You have to be consistent in keeping what you need out there in front of friends and family. Keep sharing your needs, if not every day, every other day. I have posted 18 projects to Donor's Choose. I have had them all funded, sometimes by people I did not even know.
Ask for help in obtaining what you need. If your friends and family don't know you need something, they cannot help provide it. They want to help. Let them. Don't ask for dream items. Make sure they are things to benefit your students in some way. See if you can get what you need from another teacher before you try and purchase it brand new.
I am not a crafty person but I know crafty people who love to help. I had two globes donated to my classroom so I bought the insides for a lamp and a wonderful friend created hanging lights for the globes. My students have outlined the continents with pin holes and they look awesome in my class.
Last year I had boxes of books from my reading class that I knew would simply sit in my spare room and gather dust so I donated them to other classrooms to help those teachers out. I didn't ask for money because I would rather they help a student than put a dollar in my pocket.
Do I like that there is not an endless supply of money for classroom necessities? No, especially when we cannot even get computers for each child. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is as a teacher to receive a little over $200 from the state for classroom supplies and then the list that follows of acceptable things for purchase.
These are a list of a few things I requested this year. Things which will be necessary for my classroom, maybe not someone else's. I have received most everything I asked for except composition books for history journals. You can order them for me from Amazon. I can never have too many. This is my wish list here.
People, most who are strangers, have supplied me with reporter notebooks and newspaper print cost, 11x17 paper to pull proofs for our revamped paper, pencils, lined paper, erasers, clips, and a classroom set of books, I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World for my World History students to read.
So if you want to help out a teacher, please be on the lookout for those who need your help. Even a $5 donation can help fund a Donor's Choose project or a box a pencils can keep students writing. We really don't want to be salesman, but we have it in us for our kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment