Teaching right now is so many things: challenging, joyful, rewarding, stressful, rewarding. This Teacher Appreciation week, the DonorsChoose community rallied over $9.6 million for 25,642 teacher requests. Over 49,000 people from across the United States showed up to give. What a week!
DonorsChoose is the nonprofit classroom funding site for public school teachers. 4 out of 5 US public schools in the United States have had at least one teacher request materials through the site.
Here’s how Teacher Appreciation Week unfolded this year.
MONDAY: THE KICKOFF
On the first day thousands of folks flooded the site to start giving, and a couple of partners kicked the week off right:
- GM doubled every single donation to teacher requests for technology.
- The Dalio Foundation doubled donations to every project from teachers in Connecticut!
TUESDAY: GOOD MORNING AMERICA! EVERY PROJECT MATCHED!
Teacher Appreciation Day was the biggest day of funding of the week! The SONIC Foundation made sure every donation to every teacher’s project on DonorsChoose received at least a 50% match.
Plus, Emmy-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph dropped by Good Morning America to shine a light on DonorsChoose teachers! Watch the inspiring clip on GMA’s site.
WEDNESDAY: HOW MANY PARTNERS?!
A flurry of partners are jumped in midweek to give people an a chance to make an even bigger difference for teachers:
- An anonymous family who cares about teachers is doubling donations to every teacher at an Equity Focus School who has never had a project funded on DonorsChoose.
- General Motors is doubling donations to requests for STEM materials from teachers in rural communities.
- Neukom Family Foundation is tripling donations to Racial Justice and Representation projects.
- Great Wolf Lodge is doubling donations to select projects in California, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kansas.
- Chevron is doubling donations to STEM projects from Equity Focus Schools in select communities.
- Optimum is doubling donations to every request for STEM materials from schools on Long Island.
- Kleenex is doubling donations to projects requesting Kleenex products.
THURSDAY: A MEANINGFUL MATCH (AND THE VIEW)
In one of the most heartwarming surprises of the week, an anonymous partner doubled every donation to projects serving students with disabilities. Plus, DonorsChoose teachers also got heartfelt shoutouts from none other than Whoopi Goldberg on The View, radio legend Elvis Duran on Z100, and actor Yvette Nicole Brown on Instagram.
FRIDAY: HIGH-FIVE!
The week finished off on a high note, as donors flooded the site to take advantage of a special offer. When each donor gave $5 to a classroom project and entered the promo code FRIDAY, their donation was instantly doubled. Thank you to all the donors who showed up to give a project a little bit of love before the week was out!