Posts Tagged education
An update on Emma’s giving back efforts
How each new Emma customer helps us support DonorsChoose.org
Since we give $5 to DonorsChoose for every new customer that signs up, Emma employees have a lot of fun directing upwards of $2,000 each month to deserving classrooms. A rotating cast of our staffers hand-pick where the money goes each time, and it’s such a joy to make personal connections and help underfunded teachers and projects.
Let’s take a look at some recent projects we’ve helped fund …
Comic books bring Shakespeare to life
Cody De Vos, a member of our agency relations team, directed and co-wrote Terminator the Second, a re-imagination of Terminator II using dialogue culled directly from Shakespeare’s works. It’s no stretch to say he’s a film geek.
So with that production fresh on their minds, a few staffers quickly fell in love with Mrs. C’s request for comic book versions of Romeo and Juliet. We hope this project inspired her high school students to embrace the works of Shakespeare — and become life-long readers.
Books in bags for better readers
Jerry Morrison keeps IT operations running smoothly around the office, and he’s also the father of a young son who’s enthusiastic about reading. When choosing this project as one for Emma to fund, he knew that purchasing books for a low-income, second-grade classroom was a no-brainer.
“I know how much my kiddo loves reading and getting cool books to bring home from school,” he said. “I think it would be neat to help give these kids the same excitement.”
Smile for the yearbook
Mrs. H. sponsors an after-school art club and supervises the yearbook, but she’d always taken the pictures herself or recruited parents’ help. This year, though, she wanted to give her students digital cameras so they could capture memories through their own eyes.
David Weintraub, a senior sales associate at Emma and professional photographer, spotted the project. “It’s great to support young photography students,” he said. “I love that we helped them get the tools they need to learn.”
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Thanks for joining Emma, and helping us do some good in classrooms around the country. Think you’d like to get more involved? It’s completely possible that your ability to help spark a love of reading, passion for graphic design or enthusiasm for football is only a click away. Visit DonorsChoose.org to find projects that fit your own interests, and tell us what you find.
Now students in Wisconsin can sharpen their pencils – and their minds
During this year’s SXSWi, Emma asked participants to help decide which 40 classrooms to help through DonorsChoose.org, an organization that helps fund classroom projects that fall outside public school budgets.
One such request came from Ms. F., who teaches math, science and reading to 44 sixth-graders in Wisconsin. In her classroom, there are two pencil sharpeners, one of which doesn’t work well, the other of which just doesn’t work. It takes two students to sharpen a pencil here, as one holds the broken sharpener steady while the other turns the crank.
Ms. F. appealed to DonorsChoose.org, asking for a pencil sharpener. Her students, she wrote, have great potential despite many obstacles: they’ve run out of glue for science fair boards, they don’t have enough graph paper to practice graphs in math and have no poster paper for group presentations. Plus, they share a limited number of pencils.
“The truth is, I teach in a rough neighborhood,” wrote Ms. F. “My students put up with more disappointment than they should have to and I would love to provide everything for them but, unfortunately, that is not possible. What we’re asking for is a working pencil sharpener and a few other basic supplies that will make our day run just a little bit more smoothly.”
Emma and others helped fulfilled her $276 request. Here’s what she wrote in response:
“Thank you SO much for funding my project! These resources are going to greatly enhance the learning in my classroom. Not having to send students to other rooms to sharpen their pencils or try, desperately, to manipulate our broken pencil sharpener is going to be wonderful. You don’t realize how amazing a working pencil sharpener is until you don’t have one. :)
“People like you who are so willing to help out students in need truly amaze me. There are so many people in these students’ communities and lives who are not even willing to support them and here you are, strangers to them, and more than willing to put their needs in front of your own. I hope you know how much your generosity is appreciated.”
Working with DonorsChoose.org is just one of the ways Emma gives back. Click here to learn more. See the full list of classrooms we helped fund here. And learn how you can sponsor your *own* classroom project here.
Help Emma help 40 classrooms in 4 days at SXSWi
We at Emma have been working with Donors Choose to help fund teachers’ education proposals that fall outside of regular school budgets. Here’s your chance to help us, and all you have to give is about 5 seconds.
Emma is trying to help 40 classrooms during 4 days of SXSWi, a festival in Austin, Texas that celebrates all things new media. We’ve placed a not-so-secret message on their lanyards that shows them where to vote. Care to join them? Vote today for the region and academic subject areas mean the most to you, and we’ll use the results to guide where we send our funding. You’ll be helping kids in no time at all.
Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.
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