Gracias, Salamat, Merci for torturing us

All of us remember the teachers we had in school who used to give us so much work and challenge us so much, we thought we were being tortured. When we look back at which teachers helped to shape us, these "torturers" are often the ones we think about and thank.

The good news is that lots of teachers like this are torturing/teaching children in our public schools today.

Some of the kids have written thank you notes like:

"Thank you for giving us the paper. Even though we get tortured with math we still are grateful."

"Thank you so much for donating the books. I'm not a big fan of reading, but since you sent the books, I guess I will read them."

Help us help these teachers torture their students with more math and reading!

buy CRAYONS for Valentine's Day!

You probably read the heading and said, “What?! Crayons for Valentine’s Day? Thanks, but no thanks!”

Well, wait a second. Hear us out.

We’re not suggesting that you send your honey crayons. We’re not that loopy. What we are saying is take the $100 you would spend on a dozen roses and send crayons, paper, copies of Jane Eyre, whatever, to kids in your sweetheart’s home state. Maybe even kids in the school your schnookums graduated from. When your darling sees how much joy you have spread in their name, you will get a reward. We practically guarantee it.

So, see what stuff the kids need for school, buy some and then sit back and wait for the love to wash over you.

It’s as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Pick a classroom: www.SupplyourSchools.org
2. Buy some supplies
3. Put your sweetie’s down as the Honoree

The love of your life will get thank you notes like these and love you even more for it:

Thank you for the rulers. Now we can measure all types of things like books and shoes. It just was a good idea.”

Thank you so much for the notebook paper for our classroom! We are so thankful for your generous donation. This will be a great help to us as we are preparing for our state writing tests! Mrs. M's Class

Dear Sir and Lady, We are so happy for the supplies you sent us. We only had one pencil left in our writing center. Thank you.

Dearest Donor, On behalf of myself and my students, I can't begin to thank you enough for the wonderful surprise I received today. And, such great timing too! Today we actually ran out of the many pencils I had purchased for my students. I was sure that I had at least 30 at the beginning of this week alone. I can't wait to show my kids all of the goodies they've received and look forward to them sharing their thankfulness with you. Much thanks and appreciation for everything!! Have a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season!! Ms. K

Dear person who gave us things. Thank you so much for the erasers, pencils, and markers. We really needed the pencils very bad.

Put a smile on someone’s face today.

Thank you for the big crayons that aren't broken.

In Northern Virginia, where my family and I live, parents of school kids pay extra for pencils, bags, markers, notebooks, etc. that have Spiderman, Dora or what ever the "in" licensed character is.

In many other parts of the country, children are just happy to have "crayons that are not broken." That's what an elementary school student in Ohio said when Supply Our Schools sent her classroom some new crayons. It really puts our lives in perspective.

If you want to give kids crayons that are not broken, find a classroom and buy some supplies now.

Our mention in Edutopia.org

Over the summer, the number of teachers who registered with Supply Our Schools has skyrocketed.

While looking through the site statistics, I saw that Edutopia.org mentioned us in an article about getting free school supplies.

Thank you, Edutopia for getting the word out!

Why am I up at 4:00 am?

School starts in just a couple of weeks and we have 10,000 students who need school supplies. So, I am up at 4:00 am trying to figure out where to get the money to buy these kids paper, pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, library books,...

My three year old son has no idea what I am trying to do. The other day I tried to explain it to him. I told him that some children did not have paper and pencils and stuff to do crafts and drawing with. So, I try to get these things to the kids. So, my son wants to know why their mummies and daddies don't buy stuff for their kids. I told him that not everyone had the money to buy things. A little while later, my son came to me with 3 coins his dad had given him the day before. He said that I could give his money to the mummies and daddies to buy stuff for their children.

I wish my son's sentiments could indeed translate into supplies for all the kids who need them. Maybe, maybe...

PS: Happy Birthday, Neil Armstrong!