Chicago Teachers are Strapped for Supplies

Urban School Foundation  blogger here, again. Hello blogee! I've got some local news for you today. In the past few blog posts we've been launching our discussions on education reform, touching on the hot button issues and ideas of how to shape our educational system for the needs of the future.  It's a problem at a national level, and all seems a bit daunting. But don't be discouraged! There are small things you can do on the local level to help out our students and teachers in need.
A recent article by Lisa Pevtzow highlights an issue that schools and teachers face every day: there's not enough money for supplies.

"If you have $400 to spend and it's either books for the classroom or a recess cart, you get the books," said Joseph Hailpern, principal of Edison School in north suburban Morton Grove. A photograph of a red shopping cart overflowing with balls and hula hoops figures prominently on a DonorsChoose page for the school. The caption reads: "Recess Cart in Need of TLC, No More Shopping Carts!"

Did you know in 2010, 92 percent of United States teachers spent a collective sum of $1.3 billion out of pocket for school supplies. How much is one billion? To put it into perspective, one billion seconds ago was the Cuban Missile Crisis and prior to our moon landing. A billion minutes ago the Roman Empire was in full swing. If these analogies aren't helping, suffice it to know that some teachers spend over $1000 of their own earnings in order to do their job and teach our kids. Take Teresa Jazo as an example.

"When Teresa Jazo, a music teacher at Bateman Elementary School in Chicago, ran out of her school-allotted supply of paper in October, she bought more with her own money. Then, she went online to DonorsChoose.org, an Internet-based educational charity outfitting many of the nation's classrooms, and asked the worldwide Internet community to buy her enough for the rest of the year. 'Can we learn new music?" Jazo posted. "Sorry we have no paper!' Within a week, she had her paper."

DonorsChoose.org is a great way to get involved, or check out the great stuff we're up to! Urban School foundation is working closely with Chicago schools to supply the homeless and low income students in our city and suburban schools. Learn more about what we're doing, and consider donating a backpack full of supplies to a student in need. Click here for more information.

Pack Our Haunted House

Patriots wear their Pack 2 School t-shirt.

We want to thank the Athletic Department, particularly Chad Dauphin, Dimitra Mullins and Michael Feigh, and the wonderful students at Stevenson High School for all their help in our most recent Pack-a-Packathon. Selling t-shirts for their regional football game, Stevenson Packed Their Haunted House on Halloween weekend to raise over $4,000 for backpacks. Thank you so much!

For more photos from that evening, visit our photo gallery.

Making it rain...backpacks.

Our first backpack give away! Thurgood Marshall Middle School students were so excited and grateful to get their backpacks with supplies, fun stickers, and activity books, and we were so happy to help!

We want to send out a special thank you to Bob and Courtney Tucker for their generous donation of the backpacks! Thanks to Barbara Lumpkin and Mae Jefferson at the CPS Office of External Affairs and Partnerships for all your help coordinating the drop-off, and Mae for your help trucking the backpacks over to the school on such an unusually hot day. Last but not least, we want to thank everyone at Marshall Middle: our strong student helpers for helping us set up the backpacks and Principal Flaherty for all your help making sure these book bags got into the right hands. Check it out:

"This has helped out my family so much. We really need school supplies but my mom couldn't get me any this year. I've been using them a lot. I gave the coloring books to my younger brothers and they love them. I use the stickers on my bedroom door. Thank you so much. I will not forget what you have done for us." -Anonymous

To read more thank you notes, click here, and see the pictures here!

The Illinois Secretary of State liked what we want to do for the students of Illinois. On August 2, 2010 we were officially accepted as a nonprofit organization by the State of Illinois! We've applied for our 501c3 charitable status and are eager to hear from the IRS - who would have ever thought they'd say that? What does it mean for you if we get our 501c3 status? As a donor you'll be able to deduct your contributions from your income for taxes.

We've also officially launched our website! We're still making additions and tweaks, but you can read all about our programs and who we've already helped.

Our first blog post! We're so excited to get our non profit up and running and to help students.

We've just been approved as a corporation by the State of Illinois, and we're in the process of acquiring our 501c3 status.

So, who are we and what do we do? Well, we're caring community members, small business owners and former teachers that are dedicated to doing our part to provide low-income students in the Chicagoland area an equal opportunity to a quality education and a brighter future.

We're starting small with our focus on two projects. We're raising money and reaching out to donors to help us get school supplies to the kids who need them most - homeless and low-income students. Did you know that there are over 14,000 homeless students attending Chicago public schools alone? We're trying to get them what they need to be active participants in their education with our Pack 2 School program. Changing the world one backpack at a time. Read more about that at www.pack2school.org. 

We're also passionate about charting an entrepreneurial path in our student's future. Working with the 2010 Illinois Teacher of the Year, we're in the process of developing a hands-on curriculum that prepares students for modern entrepreneurship, challenging them to explore their strengths and talents and thinking about how they can leverage those skills to start a dorm room (or home) business.

Thanks to local manufacturing partner, CDI Corp, this year Carl Schurz High School students attending the Academy of Finance II class will have the opportunity to actually start and run their own small business! We'll keep you posted on their progress and products as the class develops. Until then, learn more about this program at www.futurentrepreneurs.org.

So what's with the blog?

With this blog we're excited to bring you interesting news, videos and pictures about the education issues we care about - form the serious, to the silly and ridiculous. From time to time we'll be give you updates on our programs and events. We'd love your thoughts on these issues, and we invite you to also check out our discussion forums. We invite you to continue reading our blog.