I am honored to be part of this wonderful program from OfficeMax and Adopt-A-Classroom. I hope you all will join in and honor a deserving teacher in your life! Teachers can use our help and support! Please nominate a special teacher for the chance to win a $100 Office Max Gift Card.
Did you know teachers spend an average of $1200 of their own money on classroom supplies each year? That is $4 billion annually! That's why OfficeMax joined with Adopt-A-Classroom to create "A Day Made Better" a national cause event founded to erase teacher-funded classrooms. This year, "A Day Made Better" will take place on October 6 where 1,000 teachers will be surprised in their classrooms each with $1,000 worth of essential supplies from OfficeMax. That is more than one million dollars donated to help teachers! Principals at needy schools nominated the teachers for demonstrating dedication, innovation, and passion.
To pay-it-forward, OfficeMax and Mom It Forward have teamed up to create awareness about the issue of teacher-funded classrooms and to give you the opportunity to get involved and help a teacher in your community on behalf of the “A Day Made Better.” Here’s how…
Simply nominate a teacher of your choice to win this giveaway by following the entry requirements. Be sure to check out the prize and criteria!
Prize
One exceptional teacher will receive a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR gift card to OfficeMax. This can go a long way when it comes to classroom supplies!
Criteria
This is a giveaway that is meant to be given away. What does that mean? You get to nominate a teacher by sharing why this person is exceptional and deserving of this giveaway. The best part, every story told helps raise awareness in an effort to erase teacher-funded classrooms. The winning teacher will be chosen based on the following criteria, so be sure to tell us why your teacher is most deserving:
- Dedication: does everything in his/her power to deliver the best possible education for his/her students.
- Innovation: thinks outside the box and engages his/her students through creative learning activities & programs.
- Passion: expresses a genuine passion for education and shares this enthusiasm in the classroom.
- Need: demonstrates a need for essential classroom supplies.
Entry Requirements
To enter your teacher, you are required to do two things.
(Note: post a separate comment for each entry.)1. Nominate your teacher with a comment on this post. (If you want you can nominate your teacher with a blog post on your personal blog or on Whrrl - just let me know in the comments so I can read about your wonderful teacher.)
2. Post these messages on Facebook and/or Twitter.
(Note: Be sure to leave comments here with links to your messages.)- Teachers spend avg $1200 of own $$ on school supplies annually! Help erase teacher-funded classrooms. http://bit.ly/3VUNvC PLS RT #omx
- Nominate a teacher 2 win $100 in OfficeMax classroom supplies. Enter here: http://tiny.cc/4Lk5k PLS RT #omx
- Join the “A Day Made Better” movement to end teacher-funded classrooms at http://bit.ly/UJ3LF #omx
More than 30 sites are participating in this campaign between now and Sunday, October 4. Visit http://momitforward.com for a list of all the giveaways! You may enter a different teacher on every site, but you may only win once!
Thanks so much for helping pay-it-forward to teachers in your community! Please join us on Tuesdays, September 22 and 29 from 9 to 11 pm ET for Girls Night Out (#gno) on Twitter if you’d like to meet the team behind the cause: @officemax, @adaymadebetter and @Adopt_Classroom. Hope to see you there!
First I wanted to say thank you for participating in this giveaway. it is so sad that teachers spend so much f their own money on supplies, especially when so many of them don’t make much and live in fear of losing their jobs with every budget cut!
I would like to nominate my daughter’s pre-school teacher, Ms. Sonja. She teaches at a few different schools, so I am sure that she spends a lot of her own money! She is new to the program this year (Early Childhood Family Education in our district) so I am guessing that her expenses are even greater! She does such a good job with our class, and is so patient with all of the kids. My daughter loves going to preschool and always looks forward to Tuesday and Thursday nights with Ms Sonja! Just last night Ms Sonja was telling the parents that she wishes that she could take the kids on a field trip this year, but it wasn’t in the budget. She was asking for help looking for a local group/ business that could come to the kids and do something on site, so I know times are tough for the school.
Thank you for taking the time to read about Ms Sonja, here is the first of my comments on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=650270264&ref=nf
I would like to nominate my youngest daughter’s 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Dung. We live in Hawaii and have been hit hard, like all states, by the economic downturn. The teachers have just signed a new contract that requires 17 furlough days a year. Starting in October, the teachers will be taking 2 Fridays off without pay each month. The teachers are now working feverishly to shift the curriculum around to make sure they teach everything that needs to be taught.
At the beginning of the school year, Mrs. Dung put up a list of items that she needed to complete her supplies. She asked for donations of those items, and hopefully she’s gotten everything stocked for the year. Otherwise, she may have to buy things on her own even after taking a pay cut with the furloughs. This gift card would help tremendously.
I’d like to nominate my husband Professor C. He teaches high school Chemistry in rural South Carolina. Our school district is featured in the Corridor of Shame video.
He has been teaching for 26 years. He teaches all levels of Chemistry. He leaves home at 7am even tho he doesn’t have to be there til &:45 to help kids before school. He often doesn’t get home til 4:30 for the very same reason. His students often call at home when they need help with problems.
The money could be used to buy a graphing calculator to be used by a student who cannot afford one.
mj.coward[at]gmail.com
I tweeted @sumrthyme
I’d like to nominate my daughters 3rd grade teacher, Mrs Hendley. My daughter is super shy, and she just adores this teacher. The school year has been great so far, and I’d love to help this teacher out with supplies, etc that are needed.
Posted on facebook ~ http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=730736564&share_id=167083112577&comments=1#s167083112577
Here is my tweet ~ http://twitter.com/momof2dancers/status/4513805172
My 4 children have each had at least one teacher that has greatly influenced them for good. They have made a difference in their education and an even bigger difference in their self-awareness and self-worth. I owe many things to a few great teachers in my life.
My daughter’s 6th grade teacher came at a crucial point in her life. 5th grade was a disaster. Everything that could go wrong in a teaching situation happened and the one constant in the class was an awful teacher. Some of the children even had to repeat 5th grade at a different school.
here it is on facebook http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&suggest¬e_id=145580147854
Mr. Porter was Anna’s 6th grade teacher. He was incredible. He ran a tight classroom and the children knew what to expect. Anyone not in his class was fearful of him. When the class was well behaved he had a super sense of humor and the class enjoyed being at school. As a result an out of control group of students learned how to learn and be in control again.
Mr. Porter was able to help my daughter enjoy those around her and more importantly how to enjoy and appreciate herself and her qualities. She learned how to ask questions without fear, how to be proud that she was responsible, how to be ok making a mistake and not have to be perfect at all times. In addition to these and many more personal accomplishments, Anna had a great academic year. She enjoyed learning and entered 7th grade more than prepared.
Thank you Mr. Porter for helping my daughter, and many more, have a great year learning about school and much more.
I would like to nominate ‘Teacher Maribel’ as the little one call her. Maribel Colon teaches preK 3 to a wonderful and diverse group of little munchkins.
I can go an and say what a great teacher she is and how wonderful she is with the kids but all of us have or will say that about our nominees (if not we would not take the time to post). I will say that very few people recognize how important and much more difficult it is to teach the little ones, AND how much more expensive. The older children learn from books and fieldtrips and labs, that are expensive too but the little ones need a classroom full of supplies, stations, activities and projects to learn not only their ABC’s and 123′s but how to share and be polite and good moral members of this community.
Teacher Maribel, even with the small amount of resources available to her, manages to ‘graduate’ her munchkins with a Kindergarten level education at age 2 or 3 while adopting them as though they were her own. She, out of composition notebooks by hand on her own time, creates workbooks for each and every child in her class.
Thank you for honoring all of the wonderful teachers out there. I truly hope Teacher Maribel will be able to have some additional resources to do what she does best
I’d love to nominate my daughters teacher Ms. Mavel.
This being the first year of Kindergarten Ms, Mavel has made the transition easy on both the kids and hte parents. Providing fun and educational classes and encouraging the parents to be involved.
I love the time she takes with both the parents and the children that’s always important!
Tweet 1: http://twitter.com/wrestlingaddict/status/4590745487
Tweet 2 http://twitter.com/wrestlingaddict/status/4590763466
Tweet 3 http://twitter.com/wrestlingaddict/status/4590775265
I am always amazed at how much teachers will put into their workload – monetarily, emotionally, spiritually, physically and with their time. Thank you for this chance to help them out.
http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skiptomylou.org%2F2009%2F09%2F20%2Fmake-a-teachers-day-better-with-100-office-max-gift-card%2F&t=Make%20a%20teacher%26%238217%3Bs%20day%20better%20with%20%24100%20Office%20Max%20Gift%20Card#/posted.php?id=708520635&success
Teachers are truly the hardest working and most dedicated bunch out there…I know this first hand as I come from a long line of teachers in my family.
I would like to nominate my mother Mrs. Oshea. As a grade 2 teacher with 25 students (6 of whom are ‘BD’), everyday she undertakes the near impossible: to teach & inspire this group of children and meet all their needs while aspiring also to provide extra support to those children who need some more one-on-one attention. And she does this with energy, humor, and enthusiasm!
I don’t know how she manages because I think that I’d go nuts in no time flat, but I guess that’s just what makes her amazing!
When she comes home at night or on the weekends, she often spends hours correcting homework and planning upcoming lessons. She even goes back to her school off-hours in order to better prepare for the next day or week. Talk about monumental dedication!
Not to mention that her school is unfortunately not allocated enough funds to provide all the necessary resources and supplies that the children need (most are from low-income families and cannot afford even the basics)….so she goes and buys those items herself without a second thought. Books, supplies, snacks, etc. If the children need it, she does not hesitate to supply it to them. To her, that’s just part of being a good teacher!
In my opinion, there couldn’t be a more deserving teacher nor a classroom full of children more in need of a few extra supplies and support! This is a great opportunity to reward the most dedicated and deserving of all teachers. Thank you:)
Ok, my facebook link is:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=653835984&ref=profile
Thanks again!
I would like to nominate Jim Myers for teacher of the year. He is so thoughtful and patient with his class and makes each one of them feel so important with his comments. He keeps the class going with his concerns and sees that everyone has the supplies that are needed to succeed. He does not play favorites and worries when one of them seems to be struggling. Thanks for being there for the children.
Kristel Hansen works as a science teacher at a jr high in West Valley City, Utah. This year she isn’t getting any help with science supplies, and not always lab supplies either. She buys those out of pocket.
In order to inspire her students, she presents one with a “Student of the Week” award…out of her own pocket also.
The school doesn’t have air conditioning, and it’s pretty hot in her classroom – upstairs with no windows. She buys them bottled water and Otter pops to help cool it down, and brings in her own swamp coolers and fans to make it cooler.
She also coaches soccer there, and spent $60 of her own money to repaint the soccer field since the school ran out.
She stays on her own time, unpaid, after school to help students with her homework and do soccer coaching.
I know this card would help her out so much – even if just for ink for the printers. They only get so many copies a year, and have to pay for anything over their allowance.
Tweets posted on http://twitter.com/treesandshrubs/
My post:
http://donna444444.blogspot.com/2009/09/day-made-better.html
My tweets:
http://twitter.com/donnak4/status/4621404499
http://twitter.com/donnak4/status/4621718488
http://twitter.com/donnak4/status/4621359291