School’s in Session!

To help usher in the school year I decided that I’d turn over this month’s Donate My Dollars poll to my nephews Neil, age 12, and Jake, age 16.

We went to DonorsChoose.org, an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need. Public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests and individuals can make donations to support the projects.

I gave each of them $50 to donate and one stipulation: that the donations had to go to support Title One schools, which are located in communities with the highest levels of poverty. Here’re the classroom projects that Jake and Neil decided to support:

Classroom Donation #1 – Learning Early Math & Money in Mississippi

Jake decided to donate his entire $50 to help Ms. Oudin-Shannon purchase learning tools that will help her students learn early math concepts such as counting forward and backwards, and counting by 3′s.

Jake chose this school located in Friars Point, Mississippi because MS is considered the poorest state in the U.S. (We looked up this ranking.) He chose to sponsor a project in the PreK-Grade 2 levels because he believes that it’s important for young children to have the tools they need early in their education so that they can build a foundation of learning and more easily excel later.

Classroom Donation #2 – Exploring the Moon & the Stars in Florida

Neil decided to split his donation and make two $25 gifts. The first donation was to support Ms. Schroeder’s request for lab supplies to study the universe in her classroom, including a video lab about the stars and outer space, as well as Earth-Moon model kits. Neil chose to support his home state of Florida and his own grade level, Grades 6-8.

Classroom Donation #3 – Meat-Eating Plants & a Portable Greenhouse in Texas

Neil’s second donation was to support the students of Mr. Hight’s science class based in Lubbock, TX. Neil chose to support a school in Texas because that the state he wants to live in.

His donation will go to purchase a portable greenhouse with UV lamp and carnivorous plants. Carnivorous plants were chosen because they respond to external stimuli, while teaching photosynthesis, reaction to light sources, and even how the water cycle works (through the greenhouse of course). The goal is to have students ask “Why does the plant eat meat?”

Understanding the Importance of Education

I have to say this was a super fun charitable giving project to do with my nephews. Not only did we have a great discussion about what classrooms we should support and why, but we also got to talk about the value of education and what’s necessary for students to learn. They surprised me – in a good way!

Do you talk about charitable giving with your children? What are their reactions and thoughts to giving a donation?

Tags: donations, donorschoose, giving, school, school supplies, teachers

This entry was posted on Friday, September 6th, 2013 and is filed under Donate My Dollars.