Life Essentials: A Slice of Warm Toast for Cold Noses
My students need a sturdy toaster oven so they can have a light, warm breakfast to start off a long, cold day.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Chow's classroom raised $270
This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
Life Essentials: "Mister Chow, my stomach hurts from the cold milk." "Keila" shivered, her thin fingers white from the dry California winter, balled up in sweater sleeves. "Thank you for the milk, but I wish we could have something warm to eat."
My students are at the absolute lowest federal & state poverty level in California, and the entire school is comprised of more than 95% students at that same poverty level.
They are the children of struggling immigrants, barely able to eke out enough by cleaning houses and mowing lawns to pay for a week's worth of ramshackle apartment housing. There's no breakfast, no hot shower (because the father needs to use what little hot water there is to warm up for his 14-hour work day), and only threadbare clothing. It's 58 degrees outside and my students are coming in wearing three t-shirts one on top of the other.
We do the best we can for them. We rebuild old computers from 2008 and redesign our projects to make the most of them; we take advantage of federal meal programs to get them free lunches. Whenever possible, we fix, patch, and innovate in order to make the utmost of the funds we do get. And we do a good job of it.
My Project
This DonorsChoose project is for a simple appliance - a plain but sturdy toaster oven. It's purpose is simple - it's just so that I can make warm toast for my 42 students.
It's not much, really. I get up at 5am each morning and bake simple bread for them in the morning before I leave to go to work. The kids come in at 8:30, and it would be so wonderful to be able to heat up the simple bread for them. In fact, I'd love to try to even bake the bread in the classroom by bringing dough from home.
Can you imagine how absolutely delighted and grateful they will be to start their day off with fresh baked bread?
In this age of computers, expensive consultants, and an endless parade of "experts' touting cure-all solutions for our schools' ailments, it's so easy to forget that small, good things matter.
Teachers often ask me how I deal with my students - the same ones that others are constantly calling security on, getting into shouting matches with, having frustrating parent conferences with.
I like to believe that what small success I have with my students is because we believe in each other.
Nearly all 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
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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 Mr. Chow and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
