This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
I remember when I was in Elementary school and every Friday, armed with $2.00 (my weekly allowance) I would excitedly walk down to the basement of my school in Brighton, Massachusetts, eager to enter our school bookstore. When I walked through that threshold a whole new world of intrigue, fantasy, and Nancy Drew beckoned to me. It was always a difficult decision as to which book to pick up and which ones I had to grudgingly live behind. And, of course, I'd always buy a pencil.
Being able to walk into a store, browse through books and other trinkets (stickers, pencils, pens, and bookmarks) and knowing I could afford some of the things was empowering. I truly loved to read each book's synopsis and then be able to choose which new world I was to take home.
My passion for reading began then. I had the world in my hands and loved every minute of it.
Today, I want to nurture and empower my school's students, Elementary school P.S. 243 (serving grades Pre-K-5th), with that same sense of desire and empowerment.
The community which I serve, the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, New York, is home to frequent robberies, dilapidated projects, and corner bodegas that sell twenty-five cent bags of chips and teeny-weenies. The majority of the students who attend P.S. 243 come from the local community with 87% of them receiving free lunch. My role at the school is as a 3/4/5 grade special education teacher teaching in a 12:1 setting.
I would like to help place the world in our students' hands. However, in order to do that, I need your help. We'd like to open a school store soon. Yet, we have some meager materials, watches, stickers, pencils, etc... and only a few books that I received from a book drive where various organizations donated books for low-income schools.
We need more.
More than money, I am asking for a donation of books, pencils, pens, bookmarks, anything you could spare to help brighten the lives of our students. The most pressing donation we need is of books. I want books to be affordable and accessible to our kids. I want them to extend their minds past the yellow sponge under the sea in squarepants and into the world of Greek myths, hungry caterpillars, wild things, and scary stories where you should never laugh if a hearse goes by.
Imagine growing up in a home without the words of Shel Silverstein, without the fairy tales Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin or any other book. What would your life be like today?
So I am asking you to please help place the world in our kids' hands as my school did so many years ago.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. P. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.