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This teacher needs your help!

Ms. McClain from Bloomingdale, GA is requesting books through DonorsChoose, the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.

See what Ms. McClain is requesting

Building a Classroom Library: Chapter 3

My students need a bigger variety of genres for our classroom library.

FULLY FUNDED! Ms. McClain's classroom raised $434

This project is fully funded

My Students

"As always, today we are starting with mindfulness," I tell my students, as they put their heads down. We are going to focus on being aware of ourselves and of each other, and we are going to recognize that our peers' voices are just as valuable as our own,” I continue in my best yogi-inspired voice. “Three minutes of mindfulness. Three minutes to focus on ourselves.”

I teach ninth grade English at an inner city Savannah high school, and for many of my students, focusing on themselves is something that they don’t often find the time to do: many come from difficult situations and disrupted home lives.

Half the student population is on free or reduced lunches, and the graduation rate is only at 70%. Despite their hardships, though, they strive to persevere. Everyday I am surprised and absolutely insane with elation at their efforts and their successes.

While only a small contribution, I try to do what I can to offer them a refuge from their daily stresses. It’s not much, but I know I’m doing something good when every day I hear: “Can we do five more minutes, Ms. M.?”

My Project

With the upcoming school year, I would love to give my students more books to choose from in our personal classroom library. We currently have several shelves of a bookcase filled with books for free reading, and every semester I find myself quickly running out of recommendations for what my students can read next. In a city where students are often confronted with limitations and barriers, be them economic or social, reading material should not be one of those constraints.

Having a classroom library is extremely important to our room's culture: choice reading has been proven in many studies to increase motivation and literacy, and on a more personal level, it creates within my students a community of readers.

Over the past two years I've seen my students pass many of our books to friends and family, and our small but powerful classroom library has gained a reputation throughout the school as a place to connect with literature and each other. Since I started teaching it has always been a vision of mine to build for my students a world of unlimited books in which to find themselves, and it has been a joy to find myself closer and closer to that goal as I continue to educate.

I want to do everything I can to help my students find refuge in a world that often seems to treat them unkindly, and reading is the most magical way to do so. With a larger classroom library and more reading materials to choose from, it is my hope that every student will have the opportunity to find themselves in a book.

Ms. McClain New Hampstead High School Grades 9-12

Celebrate Black teachers and kids! This project supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of students are Black.

Equity Focus

This project directly supports students at a historically underfunded school. Learn more about our Equity Focus.

This project will directly impact historically underfunded classrooms.

Bloomingdale, GA View local requests

More than half of students from low‑income households Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more

70 students impacted 5donors

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TEACHERS, FEELING INSPIRED?

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Where Your Donation Goes

Where your donation goes
Materials Cost Quantity Total
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Vol. 1 • Amazon Business $16.35 1 $16.35
Once and for All • Amazon Business $15.77 1 $15.77
The Sun Is Also a Star (Yoon, Nicola) • Amazon Business $14.30 1 $14.30
Camp So-And-So • Amazon Business $13.56 1 $13.56
Michael Jordan: The Life • Amazon Business $12.65 1 $12.65
The Secret Life of Bees • Amazon Business $12.05 1 $12.05
Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success • Amazon Business $12.00 1 $12.00
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America • Amazon Business $11.70 1 $11.70
The Joker • Amazon Business $11.29 1 $11.29
The Whole Thing Together • Amazon Business $11.14 1 $11.14
Empress of a Thousand Skies • Amazon Business $10.88 1 $10.88
An Ember in the Ashes • Amazon Business $10.79 1 $10.79
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game • Amazon Business $10.26 1 $10.26
You're Welcome, Universe • Amazon Business $10.22 1 $10.22
Goodbye Days • Amazon Business $10.00 1 $10.00
The Devil's Dozen: 12 Notorious Serial Killers Caught by Cutting-Edge Forensics • Amazon Business $9.99 1 $9.99
Thirteen Reasons Why • Amazon Business $9.89 1 $9.89
The Help • Amazon Business $9.79 1 $9.79
The Handmaid's Tale • Amazon Business $9.59 1 $9.59
Girl with a Pearl Earring: A Novel • Amazon Business $9.44 1 $9.44
The Song of Achilles: A Novel • Amazon Business $8.83 1 $8.83
Everything, Everything • Amazon Business $8.05 1 $8.05
The Silence of Murder • Amazon Business $7.40 1 $7.40
Chasing Vermeer • Amazon Business $7.19 1 $7.19
Million-Dollar Throw • Amazon Business $6.97 1 $6.97
Flipped • Amazon Business $6.92 1 $6.92
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl: Book One (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Series) • Amazon Business $6.53 1 $6.53
The Fever: A Novel • Amazon Business $6.52 1 $6.52
The House of the Scorpion • Amazon Business $6.21 1 $6.21
The Fill-In Boyfriend • Amazon Business $5.64 1 $5.64
Tell Me Three Things • Amazon Business $5.60 1 $5.60
The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure • Amazon Business $4.49 1 $4.49

Materials cost

$312.01

Vendor shipping charges

 FREE

Sales tax

 $21.53

3rd party payment processing fee

$4.68

Fulfillment labor & materials

$30.00

Total project cost

$368.22

Suggested donation to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

$64.98

Total project goal

$433.20

How we calculate what's needed

Total project goal

 $433.20

5 Donors

-$433.20

Donations toward project cost

-$368.22

Donations to help DonorsChoose reach more classrooms

-$64.98

Still needed View calculationHide calculation

 $0.00

Our team works hard to negotiate the best pricing and selections available.

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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. McClain and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.

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