Thanks to a $4 million dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, DonorsChoose.org offers high-school teachers at high-need (40% or more students eligible for free/reduced lunch) or rural schools half-funding for all projects to prepare their students for college and/or college level work!
What’s Available and Who Qualifies
- Gates Foundation has given us a grant to match funding to your next classroom project request(s) to prepare students for college or college level work. So far, 93% of projects that qualified for this Gates match offer were fully funded by donors who visited our site!
- If you are a full-time teacher at a high-need or rural public high school, you are eligible for this funding.
How Do I Get Started?
- First, log in to your teacher account on DonorsChoose.org (if you don’t have one, any public school teacher can sign up at www.donorschoose.org/teacher).
- Once you’re logged in, submit one or more projects requesting materials to help prepare your students for college or college level work.
- A few hours after your project is approved, you should see a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation logo on your project. This means it has qualified for this offer and now has a great chance of being fully funded by the other donors that visit our site.
To see projects recently funded via this offer, click here.
To get started with submitting your own college prep project, log in to your account at www.donorschoose.org/teacher.
[Updated 09/10/09]
Related classroom projects:
- Teaching High School Science with College Technology
- One Laptop Can Make a Difference!
- Learning Movie Maker
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Question, where did you get your research?
Comment by Honda Prelude Mod er — Feb 15, 2009 @ 2:05pm
i think that it is very helping to give to the community like that .helping communitys is a good way of showing how much you care.try giving to MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION,CHARITYS,SHELTERS,and CANCER PROGRAMS.thank you for making this world a better place!
Comment by victoria — Feb 24, 2009 @ 5:46pm
i think that it is very helping to give to the community like that .helping communitys is a good way of showing how much you care.try giving to MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION,CHARITYS,SHELTERS,and CANCER PROGRAMS.thank you for making this world a better place! keep up the good work!
Comment by victoria — Feb 24, 2009 @ 5:47pm
I am writing you because our community has a huge problem. Last Sat, March 28th our 7 year old elementary school started collapsing due to mine subsidence. Our school, even though the ground was tested before construction began, started sinking, cracking and literally coming apart at the seams.
Our school is located in Benld,IL. It is part of Gillespie School Dist. #7. Our district educates a little more than 1300 students. 700+ of these students attended pre-k through 5th grade at Benld. We also housed a birth-three year old program.
I want you also to understand how hard our administrators, school board, superintendent, faculty and staff have worked. Our school started collapsing on Saturday, March 28th. On Monday, engineers and architects deemed it unsafe for use. Tuesday the31st we moved our materials to the high school/middle school campus. Wednesday April 1st we got our rooms organized. Thursday, April 2nd we started back to school running a double schedule. Our high school & middle school kids attend Monday-Friday 6:50am-11-50am. At noon elementary students start arriving and our day goes from noon until 5pm. Today, went surprisingly smooth. Thanks to everyone working hard and coming together.
We are at a loss. Our school cost more than $7 million dollars to build 7 years ago, estimates are it could cost upwards of $15 million to rebuild. This is an undertaking that may be beyond us. What you need to realize is we are a low income, rural community. Not many tax dollars coming our way! What we need is help! All kinds financial and getting the word our about our problem.
If the government can bail out all of these greedy CEO’s of companies and allow them to leave their jobs with a golden parachute worth more than it would cost to rebuild our school, why can’t they help us.
Please do anything you can to help us get our elementary school back.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Parker
4th grade teacher
Parent of 3rd grade student
Concerned member of our community
Comment by Jennifer Parker — Apr 5, 2009 @ 9:59pm
Our school has had to take Microsoft Office OFF of all student computers as a means to save over $50,000 in licensing fees. It’s painful to see my students, in an economically impoverished community, not even have the “basics” most schools take for granted. (sigh)
Comment by Staci — Apr 13, 2009 @ 2:04pm
It is nice to know that the Gates Foundation is still helping out education (especially rural) even in these trying economic times. We sometimes forget to thank those who have made tremendous contributions via time, money, or other resources. Just because they have been blessed more than others, they still need to hear us say ‘Thanks for all you do!” They are human, too.
Comment by Paul Johnson — May 6, 2009 @ 10:31pm
Because of this program & all of the good hearted donors, I and another fellow teacher were able to purchase individual reading titles to sdtrengthen our students vocab & comprehension,while having fun reading.Thank you so much!
Comment by Jennifer — Jun 2, 2009 @ 7:03am
My class of special friends really want and deserve a new rug to learn on! Please consider helping my class of SUPER children.
Thank you!
Lynn Wilson
kindergarten teacher
Montclaire Elementary
Charlotte NC
28210
Comment by Lynn Wilson — Aug 9, 2009 @ 11:48pm
Thank You for Donating to our Future. “We are the Dream!”
Comment by Iseel — Sep 2, 2009 @ 2:23pm
Several concerned parents along with a retired teacher are starting an aftershcool program for kids 1st. grade through middle school. Basically to help with their homework and to instill work habits. Some need writing skill and expecially math help and all need social skills. This is a special time in their lives and they need that extra nudge to build self-esteem. Our concerns at this time is having workstations for them so we can work with several a one time. Any help would be appreciated.
Comment by rosemary hightower — Sep 16, 2009 @ 2:55pm
As an elementary education teacher in a high need school, I have no computers in my classroom to help students learn via technology. I’m curious why this grant does not also give to elementary schools.
Comment by Norma Garrity — Sep 20, 2009 @ 11:56pm