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.
My Students
I teach at a hard to staff school in New York. Our school often times is infested with mice and water bugs. Some years it is worse than others. However, mice are a common fixture in our classroom every year without fail. We do not get new rugs for the children to sit on. It's not in the budget!
92% of our students qualify for the free lunch meal program.
Our school is 97% African American and the remainder of the population is Hispanic.The housing projects loom wide and sprawling at the front of our school building. The children that come from there are amazing and wonderful. They come to school as happy as larks daily. Every day as the children arrive, the first thing they do is unpack and sit on the rug for a read aloud and/or discussion. This rug that they sit on is black with dirt and quite smelly. I worry that the children with asthma and skin ailments will be sickened even more by sitting on the rug in my room. I cannot get a new rug as my school does not provide them. No one comes to wash them and so in the past I have reached out to donors choose supporters to request a new rug for the children to sit on.
The last rug we received was many years ago and I hope that this year we might be able to get the children a new rug, some pencils and an electric sharpener.
My Project
Each night when I come home I think of the filthy blackened smelly rug which is affecting the quality of our lives daily. Each day as I come into my classroom I am faced with a strong odor of mice, which is the scent of the rug. Its a pungent horrid odor and so each day I rush to open the windows quickly to get the smell out before the children arrive for the day. A clean rug will affect the health of the children in my room. It will lighten our spirits and not make us so uneasy to sit down. I love to sit with the children on the rug, as they learn some things more easily when I sit there. I have not been able to sit with them on the rug in ages. These hard working children always need pencils and sharpeners to get through each day. I hope there is someone out there who recognizes how dire our need is presently and assists us. My students come unprepared to school daily as the majority of their parents do not have the funds to support them with the necessary materials they need.
Your kind support would be much appreciated.
It is difficult to truly express in words how grateful the children and I would be to you for a new rug.The children love their classroom and I make every effort to make the room happy and inviting, with vivid colors and their beautiful artwork.The smell of the unsanitary rug dampens our spirits daily but we struggle through it all. The children badly need a new rug to sit on, some pencils and a new electric sharpener. This would help them a lot.
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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. Zitman and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.