This week, we’re helping a Mississippi grade school class start a garden, and an Alabama school refurbish its library. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help by sharing or supporting our featured projects.
The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science, math, and literacy projects for red-state public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
We have a new project today, in a Gulf Coast Mississippi town near Pascagoula. This early-grades teacher wants her class to be able to garden, and at the moment, she has 2x matching funds available from Chevron: Chevron recognizes that supporting racial equity in education is essential. In partnership with DonorsChoose, Chevron seeks to provide students with resources that increase access to STEM opportunities for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Americans.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students a love for hands on learning outside growing their own vegetables and fruits!
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Gautier Elementary School, Gautier, Mississippi
Total: $378.68 (2x matching funds from Chevron)
Still Needed: $347.80 $177.80 ($89 from us)
Project description by Mrs. Smith: Our project will include purchasing raised garden beds. We will plant fruits and vegetables. Our plan is to be able to cook the veggies we grow. Students will be hands-on in every step of the process. They will do the planting and weeding.
The students will observe the veggies growing and try foods they have never eaten before.
They will be able to take the vegetables harvested to our school cafeteria. The cafeteria will be able to cook and serve what they had grown.
This is a great opportunity for students to learn to grow food and take care of it. They will be able to observe the life cycles of the plants.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
This Nevada elementary school has gone all in on gardening!
The first of two White House Kitchen Garden harvests in 2016, with local students.
We started last week on this exciting and ambitious project in Alabama, to overhaul the school library of the James I. Dawson Elementary School, in Huntsville. Our friend Eastern Bluebird, who found this for us, adds that the school was recently renamed to honor the late Dr, James Dawson, a very distinguished local educator and the first Black man to earn a PhD in Agriculture from Penn State (short article on the renaming). I’m sure he would be delighted to see this project going on in his school!
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students new, exciting books that foster a love of reading!
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; more than three‑quarters of students from low‑income households.
Location: James I. Dawson Elementary School, Huntsville, Alabama
Total: $1,189.56
Still Needed: $548.56 $463.56
Project description by Mrs. Rodgers: Help me provide new, exciting books for my students. Studies show that the best way to foster a love of reading is offering kids a vast array of different types of books.
Every kid deserves great books to read that help them love reading.
New books with colorful covers call to young readers in a way that old books simply cannot.
Our school library is very old, outdated, and in great need of an overhaul. You can help put thrilling books into the hands of deserving young readers!
Thank you!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Rather than more trailers about individual books, here are a couple of quick tours of some very nice children’s libraries in city public library systems. The Children’s Library Discovery Center at the Queens Central Library has worked with awesome science museum the Exploratorium, to integrate science and STEM concepts, and hands-on learning in general, into the library experience.
As sort of a companion piece to the above, this is an often-funny TED Talk from a graphic designer who got involved with a library project for all New York City public schools.
Our main project from last week was completed, with lots of help from our readers, including some who don’t check in here but tagged themselves there (thank you!)
Project #1, Good Books Make Great Readers: Ms. Jones needed to expand her elementary-school classroom library with books her students would love.
She writes: Thank you so much for donating to my project! My students will be so excited for our new books! Because books are vital to children’s learning and having interesting books my students enjoy is super important to me. Once again, thank you so so much! This project really means a lot to me!
DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education. |
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project combats the anti-science, anti-education push in conservative America by funding science, math, and literacy projects in red-state public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, a crowdfunding charity founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau.
Every Sunday, we focus on helping to fund projects in neighborhood public schools where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income households. We welcome everyone who supports public school education — no money is required!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 1038! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.