Because America is a country that definitely has its priorities straight, public school teachers are spending an average of $479 per year of their own money on school supplies for their students, according to a report from the Education Department. Around 7% of teachers spend more than $1,000 per year.
And the average is even higher for those who teach in more impoverished areas of the country. If you’d like to help out this school year, here are some suggestions:
Donate to Individual Teachers
DonorsChoose.org and AdoptAClassroom.org are used by public teachers across the nation to help fund various projects. Right now there are thousands of classrooms listed, many that need under $100 to be fully funded. You can search for schools in your area if you want to help local institutions.
Popular requests include books for the classroom, basic supplies like pens and technology like tablets and smart boards.
Don’t forget to share the projects you’re passionate about, on Twitter, Facebook—wherever. Word of mouth is a powerful tool.
Pay Off Lunch Debt
Speaking of using social media for good, at the end of 2016, writer Ashley Ford was able to raise over $100,000 to help pay off students’ lunch debt with a single tweet. You can do the same thing.
According to CNBC, kids who cannot afford lunches are often given modest meals by their schools, things like cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cartons of milk. Often, the kids stand in a separate lunch line to receive them, making “a student’s financial distress obvious to classmates.” Contact your local school and ask if you can contribute.
You can also contact your local food bank to help students struggling with poverty. Feeding America has a BackPack program that does exactly this. Real School Gardens is an organization that partners with school districts to build community gardens and teach students about the environment.
As Ford notes in that article, paying off lunch debt is just one way to help—you can also see if the school needs help with uniforms for its low-income students, for example.
Contribute to Your School District
Contact your local school district or parent-teacher organization to see if they have funds set up for different projects. You can also stop by the next school board meeting to see what the local officials are discussing.
You can also directly support the school’s library (or your local library). As Donor Choose points out, libraries can be an educational lifeline for low-income students who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the internet and certain books and educational materials.
The Frugal Father 