For two years, I have been thinking about submitting a Donor's Choose project. My school was denied a HUGE grant recently, so I finally decided to take the bull by the horns and submit a Donor's Choose proposal for an iPod Touch and microphone. I didn't want to get greedy, so I only asked for one, and I centered it around using the touch as a recorder to increase reading comprehension, fluency, and accuracy. Of course, I mentioned all of the added benefits of the iPod apps. Crossing my fingers I get funded!
I hope you get it! All of these posts are really influencing me to write a grant this year. Let us know...
congrats and good luck I love love love Donorschoose and have gotten great things from there. It's a great resource when working for a poor school. Thankfully I now work in a great district that affords us so much, but I remember working in a district where we didn't have anything and it was nice to get such great learning items for the kiddos there!
I submitted my first one the other day. I asked for a digital camera. Now I find myself obsessively checking DC to see if I have any funding! I am not holding out much hope though. I checked other projects from Nebraska, and almost none have any money donated.
I got LOTS of math manipulative, games, and 15 literacy take-home backpacks. Again love it! I always kept my requests at $200 or less. It really helps get donors.
If you go to this link: http://discoverbing.com/education/teacherappreciation/?fbid=SOyW63Swe54&wom=false you can fill out a form about your favorite teacher. Then bing will email you a $5 gift certificate for DonorsChoose.com! Imagine if everyone here did it!
I love Donorschoose too. I'm in a very poor school district and just about everyone I know whose ever filled one out was funded. I need to get busy and write one up for the fall so I can enjoy the rewards all year. I'm wanting to do "boy and girl book clubs" this year. I need double sets of books.
I have a Donorschoose question-I just (obsessively) checked my project again, and the price went up. It used to be $248 total with the optional donation, and it is now $265. Is this normal? I also signed up for the Facebook updates!
Good luck! Last year my kids were stuck using tables (the district ran out of desks) so they had no storage, and I put in a DC request for seat sacks. Now, about half of the funding came from friends and family, but the other half came from complete strangers, which was very cool. Another teacher at my school has gotten lots of neat science and art supplies through DC, too.
My sister in law got a color printer/copier/scanner for her library through them. Since I work in a private school (with really low funding, but still, a private school) I don't qualify... I hope you get what you need!
This was how I got my first project funded! I borrowed the laptop cart before school was out, and had my students (and my teammate's class next door) fill out these bing codes. The kids LOVED that they got to write about different teachers... begged to do it multiple times, and so we funded some of our project, and two other teachers' projects. After some funding from my students, my project got pushed up to the first page, and a few random people donated the remainder. I'm now in love with DC. I also wrote up a letter that I sent to a local company (and plan on sending out some more in the fall when I have new projects posted). It mentions that they are tax deductible, so it's more appealing for them to donate (I got a project picked up this way). I'm waiting to post my next project until the fall, because I know VA is supposed to have some partner funding for the 2X the impact opportunities!
Ugh, I wish you were closer! I would have swapped my desks for your tables, haha! I hate desks, and plan on doing tables as my next project!
Yeah, that happens when the item prices change. It's convenient because you don't have to keep checking prices and manually changing them.
Emily, go to http://www.donorschoose.org It is a really cool (and free) way to get items you need for your classroom!
The process looks a little daunting, but it's not too bad. If I had sat down and did it all at once without interruption, I could have been done in less than an hour. Not bad for getting free stuff! I had put off doing a project because I thought it seemed so overwhelming, but it wasn't.
Ive had 2 grants funded in the last year! I did it just as a "maybe" this will work and maybe not. Both were funded! One was funded the very last day! It's an awesome network. My b-day is Sunday and they sent me a $25 gift card to use! Love their website!
