Hurricane Relief for Bay County Teachers

It all started with a teacher reaching out to teachers.


When we got the phone call, there was no way anyone could have imagined or anticipated the magnitude of the destruction facing teachers and students in Bay County, Fl.  We were not prepared for what we saw or what we heard walking around Springfield Elementary School with Principal Ilea Faircloth was in tears as she went from room to room explaining the difficulty of making phone calls to inform teachers that their second home was gone. Amazing classrooms, safe-havens for children wiped there one day and gone the next.


Seeing therapy wheel chairs crushed under debris, bent filing cabinets and classroom libraries ripped to shreds and spread across the school grounds.. it broke our hearts.


Listening to her tell about how her teachers are now sharing a classroom in another school under the supervision of a new principal while she searched for her over half of her students who have yet to reenroll, it brought everyone to tears.


Living only 4 hours away, we had no idea just how precious all of our classrooms really were until we saw what happened in Bay County, FL.
Teach Your Heart Out  is a conference that is all about growing teacher leaders but after visiting Bay County, Fl, we knew that it was us that needed to grow, we need to be more than a conference to these teachers. At our conferences we nurture and guide teachers because our cornerstone is about helping every teacher become the best teacher they can be. We now know that we have an incredible opportunity to make a difference in more ways than that.


Parents and teachers should not be worrying about students missing significant time and relocating. This is a massive undertaking for teachers, especially when all of their resources and personal touches have been destroyed. We want both the teachers and the students to come back to warm and inviting classrooms that have the personal touches that make them feel like they belong. Every student deserves a classroom where they feel at home and every teacher deserves to make that possible.


We are raising funds to give directly to teachers. We are donating the money we collect to Donorschoose.org  where these funds will fulfill requests from teachers directly impacted in Bay County. This site allows teachers to ask for materials that they lost and or need to make their classrooms warm and inviting again. As teachers, we cannot imagine losing everything in our classroom and then having to start over a month later somewhere else with nothing. We cannot change what happen, but we can give these students and incredible second half of the year.


Here are just a few materials teachers will be able to receive through Donorschoose.org:

·      Classroom Libraries (Kindergarten – High school)

·      Book Bins

·      Paper

·      Pencils

·      Markers

·      Crayons

·      Dry Erase Markers

·      Lysol Wipes

·      Hand Sanitizer

·      Tables

·      Flexible Seating

·      Bookshelves

·      Storage cart

·      Pens

·      Notebooks

·      Math Fact Cards (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division)

·      Sight Word Cards

·      Math Manipulatives (K,1,2,3,4,& 5)

·      Copy Paper

·      Stem Bins

·      Border Paper

·      Border

·      Classroom Posters

·      Jackets

·      Lunch Boxes

·      Backpacks

 

Thank you in advance for taking care of our family!

The Teach Your Heart Out Team