I partnered with Staples in exchange for sharing this information and my honest opinion.
Did you know that an estimated 99.5 percent of all public school teachers use their own money to equip their classrooms averaging an out of pocket cost of more than $400 per year? From running out of supplies to helping out students who cannot afford their own supplies, teachers all over are continuously buying classroom supplies.
One way for teachers to get some help with supplies is DonorsChoose.org. Teachers log onto DonorsChoose.org and submit a project requesting books, technology, field trips or other items to expand learning in the classroom. Users then go and donate what they can to fund the project. It’s super simple and free for teachers to use. I actually just read in my daughter’s kindergarten newsletter last week that her teacher just received whiteboards for each student to practice their letters through a DonorsChoose.org project she had listed.
Well this year Katy Perry and Staples teamed up again to help teachers across the country. Staples announced in April that it would donate $1 million to fulfill DonorsChoose.org projects. These last few months, Staples has funded over a thousand classroom projects to help more than 780 teachers and 98,000 students.
With Staples being a great one-stop shopping trip for many parents and teachers, it only makes sense that they support education. The founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, Charles Best, has said that they’ve heard directly from teachers that Staples and DonorsChoose.org have made a lasting impact on their classrooms. It really is a great partnership that so many benefit from.
Staples customers nationwide even jumped in and offered support through donations, totaling more than $330,000 to DonorsChoose.org at Staples stores and www.StaplesForStudents.com in the lead-up to back-to-school season.
In addition to helping classrooms via DnorsChoose.org, Staples also launched a sweepstakes for the chance to win a $50,000 scholarship and to meet Katy Perry.
Yesterday, October 13, Katy Perry joined the lucky sweepstakes winners and their guests at a VIP Celebration in Los Angeles and presented Matthew O’Keefe from Deep River, Conn., grand prize winner of the Staples for Students Sweepstakes, with a $50,000 scholarship from Staples. Matthew is a senior in high school and is currently applying to colleges across the U.S. for enrollment in fall 2017.
(Casey Rodgers/AP Images for Staples)
Just because the 2016 campaign with Staples and DonorChoose.org has ended that doesn’t mean Staples has stopped supporting teachers. Staples for Students is an ongoing program that helps students and teachers with the school supplies and essential items needed to achieve success in education. Shoppers can always pick up extra supplies while shopping in Staples stores to give to their own kid’s teachers.
Katy says
I love that Staples is helping teachers with classroom supplies. They’re paid so poorly anyway, for such a difficult and important job. It’s such a shame that in our country they are paying out of pocket for supplies.