NEW
YORK - There’s now another way to honor the bridal
couple besides giving them expensive gifts they may not
want or need.
DonorsChoose.org is a new wrinkle on the wedding
registry theme that lets couples post their preferences
online to help underfunded public school classrooms.
Recently launched to aid New York City public
schools, the registry also will cover 20 counties in
North Carolina beginning in January, 2004, and after
that, schools in Chicago and Denver.
It’s the brainchild of Charles Best, a Yale
graduate and a teacher at a public school in the Bronx,
one of New York City’s boroughs. He found that
children from many low-income neighborhoods don’t have
the books, art supplies, science equipment, and other
materials they need for classroom learning. So he
designed a Web site where teachers could develop
projects in need of funding, to be matched with
donations from people who want to fund the projects.
The couple can register online by creating a gift
account, then browse through thousands of teacher
proposals, perhaps specifying grade level, academic
interest, school location, funding amount, percentage of
students that receive free lunch, or percentage of ESL
students. Donors can make a tax-deductible contribution
that fully or partially funds a chosen proposal.
Before accepting teacher proposals, the DonorsChoose
staff verifies the teacher, the request and the
availability of desired materials. The staff can
negotiate discounts and price the proposal, then review
the project.
In New York City, 1,400 public school teachers are
now using the site to find resources for their students.
A typical proposal might be ‘‘Class Set of Hamlet,’’
or ‘‘New Playground for P.S. 59.’’ Donors from
all 50 states already have funded $780,000 worth of
books, art supplies, science equipment and other
supplies to students in low-income neighborhoods in the
city.
