This year, Gilroy resident Christine Taylor took an unusual approach to Christmas.
She decided to donate to Gilroy’s schools on behalf of family and friends, instead of doing the traditional mad scramble to find holiday presents.
Taylor contributed towards Gilroy High School teacher Mr. Hungerford’s project to get new science equipment in the classroom. She made the donation in the name of her childhood friend, whom she has known for 40 years.
“It’s a win-win. They get a present and the kids get a present and it’s local and it stays local,” she said.
Taylor, who doesn’t have children, donated to the schools this year because she fondly remembers teachers from her K-12 school years and has continued to stay in touch with several of them until they retired.
Taylor first heard about the www.donorschoose.org website – which allows people to contribute to classroom wish lists – months ago, when she was watching TV personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert talk about an effort to raise funds for a classroom project in another state.
So, Taylor went online and donated to that project, in addition to another project at a school closer to home: Gilroy High School.
“I kind of get where the teachers are coming from in trying to find creative ways to help their kids,” she explained. “Some of the tools the teachers need are expensive and they aren’t in the school budget.”
The current fundraising projects on the website benefit five schools serving large numbers of students from low-income families, English Language Learners or students receiving free or reduced meals within the Gilroy Unified School District. This includes the Dr. TJ Owens Gilroy Early College Academy (GECA), Gilroy High School, Luigi Aprea Elementary School, Rod Kelley Elementary School, and El Roble Elementary School, according to the website.
Donors can contribute to a portion of a teacher’s wish list and pay online through amazon.com or PayPal. Then, they can ask to receive future emails about projects at that school, or they can ask to never hear from the website again.
This holiday season, the following eight fundraising projects are in taking place in Gilroy:
• AP Physics lab equipment: GECA students in Mr. Mangaraju’s class are dreaming of equipment for their physics lab this Christmas season, a dream that comes with a price tag of $1,416. Mangaraju’s physics class is taught at the same level as a pre-engineering physics course for university students and prepares high school students to test out of the college class through AP exams in May.
• Dynamic possibilities: Mr. Hungerford at GHS hopes to secure two carts with masses, magnets, and pulleys to teach his students about momentum, velocity, acceleration and friction. His dream for the students costs: $387.
• Putting a spin on physics: Mr. Hungerford wants to get a rotary motion sensor, a $399 project that will help students measure moments of inertia and torque.
“It is one thing to lecture, but real understanding comes when they are able to put the discussion into practice in the lab,” writes Hungerford on the website.
• Time for reading: Mrs. Beard, a fourth grade teacher at Luigi, wants to bring 30 subscriptions of an adapted version of Time magazine to her classroom, so she can teach her students about current events. She is still $202 away from making her wish a reality.
“Time magazine allows them to read about and understand about how other people in our world live,” explains Mrs. Beard on the website. “By reading, reading, reading students will become better, stronger students.”
• 21st Century… Here we come! Mrs. Fabela at El Roble knows the time has come for her classroom to replace their overhead projector with more modern technology, but she is asking donors to help cover the cost of the new Epson document camera she wants to replace it. The camera contributes to interactive lessons by making it easy to display textbooks, experiments and 3-D projects in the classroom. It also allows the lessons to be uploaded to a classroom website, according to the Epson website. The project is $375 short of its $749 goal.
• We love literacy centers! Mrs. Fuller of El Robe is requesting resources that will help her teach students about sounds, including syllable counting, sound sorting. She is $375 short of her $465 goal.
• Help our classroom library grow: Mrs. Lucia of El Roble is asking for books – and lots of them – for some voracious third-grade readers.
“To spark children’s interest and enthusiasm about reading, books must catch their attention, captivate their imaginations, and make them want to return to their pages again,” she explains on the website.
Every book on the list has been requested by a student in her classroom.
To make a donation to a moderate or high poverty school in Gilroy, go to: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?keywords=Gilroy
The site accepts payment through amazon.com and PayPal.
