If you’ve been reading this site for awhile, you’ll remember last October, when Evil Beet participated in the Blogger Challenge for DonorsChoose.org. (If not, you can read the main thread here.) Donors Choose is a VERY COOL charity organization that allows donors to pick specific classroom projects in high-poverty schools to help fund. During the month of October, you guys donated $2,325 to help fund projects that benefited thousands of students all over the United States.
Then, in December, I learned that an anonymous donors was so impressed with your efforts that s/he donated $250 in honor of Evil Beet’s readers to help kids learn about history. That was super exciting for me!
Over the past couple of months, I have received a bunch of packages from the teachers whose projects you guys funded — with notes from their students! I now have hundreds of letters from kids in these schools thanking me (and you guys!) for helping fund their classroom projects. I am saving each and every one of them, because they are so special to me, and it is so amazing to actually HEAR from these students about how their learning experience has improved as a result of Evil Beet readers’ donations. They are so excited to have these new learning materials. Some teachers even sent photos of their students using the materials our readers helped pay for! It is so inspiring to see that this country has teachers who are so invested in helping their students to learn, and who take time out to show their gratitude to others who support them in that goal.
I decided tonight to take some snapshots of some of these little notes so you guys could see first-hand how your donations helped these kids. (To protect their privacy, I’m not going to post any of the photos of the actual kids.) I hope you find these notes as cool as I did, and I hope you get warm fuzzies inside when you read them!
Even though the Bloggers Challenge is over, you can still make a donation to Donors Choose. Their website is here. You can choose whatever project resonates with you and help to fund it. Even $10 makes a difference here! I know cash flow is tight for everyone, but I’ll let you guys in on the most important financial lesson I’ve ever learned: The more money I give away, the more money I make. If I am generous with money — even if I only have a tiny bit to give! — the universe will always take care of me financially. Please consider making a donation to this wonderful organization to help even more kids get the kind of education they DESERVE.
(Remember that if you click on a photo again after opening it on its own page, you’ll get the full-size version of the photo.)
haha.
aw, I am such a softy. This makes me cry.
So awesome. This is the kind of stuff that we should focus on. Less fighting, more helping less fortunate children please.
Thanks for sharing Beet. And, strangely enough, we share the same financial philosophy. I always tip 20% or more (except if the service is really lousy) and put money in the Salvation Army bucket, etc. Whereever there’s a place to put a few extra bucks. I know it’ll come back to me in the end. We’ve just got to put it out there.
Cuteness, all of them made me smile!
Exactly!
How can it not? The world needs more of this :-)
That is so cool!
I hate to rain on the parade, but I’ve been on the receiving end of these before (way back when) and know that the majority of the kids really couldn’t care less about you or any of the donors. I mean, they’re obviously happy about getting the gifts and all, but there’s a good chance they were forced to do it by their teacher. You guys really don’t remember? The teacher’ll be like,”and make sure to add specific details to make it sound genuine” and other crap like that…and you can’t go to recess until you finish.
Yeah, of course they’re form letters, but it’s still really exciting that these kids are getting these learning materials and know that they’re coming from donations from complete strangers who care about them.
Kudos to you for such a noble deed.
As a HS teacher in a low performing school, I am so excited to see this possibility for donations! I’ll have to get my info together and submit our current projects for assistance.
Seriously cute letters…but I’m a little bitter about the thank you notes on the beakers. They are making chap stick, lotions and soaps? WTH? It’s like a Bath & Body Works in the classroom. I’m only pissed that I didn’t get to do cool crap like that in school.
I’m a high school senior, and last year in chemistry we made chap stick. Other kids I know who attend other schools have also made it. Maybe it’s common nowadays?
Something tells me these kids would be learning a lot more if they were reading THIS blog!
Nice story. Helping the chillrins and all. And it’s awesome that Evil Beet anonymously donated $250 in honor of Evil Beet readers.
Dude, if it had been me, I would have been like, “Hey, guess what I did in your honor?” I also would have done it in OCTOBER, when it would have gone toward Evil Beet’s ranking in the Blogger Challenge. I swear I didn’t do it, and I don’t know who did.
This is awesome! it made me cry.. Thanks for sharing Beet.