TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa woman has made it her mission to help teachers in the Bay Area get much-needed school supplies.
Ellie Baggett has met a lot of teachers who buy much of their own supplies every year and decided to start a Facebook campaign where strangers could help support teachers across the country.
“I don’t think they’re getting the funding they need out of Tallahassee so if someone’s going to help them I guess going to be us,” she said.
She started a Facebook post on her own page encouraging teachers to post their school supply needs and others to claim teachers on the thread. The idea is that when you claim or adopt a teacher you will spend around $30 on supplies for them.
Baggett is asking other people to copy and paste the text from her post into their own social media feeds to get teachers adopted in other Bay Area cities and around the country.
If you'd like to start a movement in your own community, please copy and paste the following text:
WE'RE LIVE, PEOPLE!
Teachers today have to pay for SO MUCH for their classrooms from their own paychecks. Maybe we can have our own kind of Giving Tree operation, and where non-teachers can 'sponsor' a classroom of a teacher! The goal is to do this at the start of each new semester. 🧠🍎👨🏫
RULES:
* Teachers post the county they teach in, the grade(s) they teach, and their top 3 needs (ie: paper towels, crayons, notebooks). They can post more info, but are not required to. Teachers, please write "TEACHER REQUEST:" as the first words in your post so it doesn't get lost.
* 1 person will comment and 'claim' that teacher's classroom and donate items to that class. They can even send the supplies via Amazon to a non-residential address for easy delivery! People can spend whatever they'd like, but the goal is $30 per classroom (they need it, folks).
* I encourage you to support teachers YOU DON'T KNOW. If you commit to a classroom, please honor your commitment.
* * PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS AS A PUBLIC POST- DON'T SHARE (it gets confusing if you share) so you can start a movement on your own!OKAY, Go! 🏁
So far, Baggett says about 40 Tampa-Area teachers have had their supply lists funded and the number is still growing.