You’ve all made a wise investment – and one that I admire and
appreciate. I’m excited to have begun advising the student newspaper here this
year, and I’m blown away by the student-staff’s accomplishments thus far. Our
lone stumbling block has been finding funding to provide the a
visually-appealing, photo-enhanced product. In a district that I believe
inspires success in students despite being at a disadvantage economically, your
financial support helps me make sure we aren’t bound by our tax base.
Specifically,
your donation provided for our first high-caliber camera, a Nikon D-60. In a digital age
where students are inundated with thousand of images on a daily basis, it’s
crucial for a student newspaper to provide outstanding imagery in order to draw
readers into the writing. By improving our visual appeal, we’re increasing our
readership. When students know that their words are read by a growing
readership, their work becomes more important, and the benefits they reap
become more substantial.
Through grounded projects such as
this newspaper, students have actually demonstrated an interest in their class
and their school, and in improving their own communication skills. I feel
confident that it is those skills that will help them as they pursue varied life
goals after high school. And you should feel confident that you were an
integral part of the plan.
The students here are very
aware of and reflective about their educations, because as a school, we ask
them to think about this process regularly.
Photos and updates from the other projects as we get them. Well done, all.
A.
That just gives us a nice warm feeling, making the donations well worth it for us.
Back when this started I proposed on another website, http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/lounge/86041-lets-make-difference.html that members there help with a project or two. Eventually we got 9 projects funded! Finally everyone ran out of extra funds so we stopped to catch a breath, but in August I think we can start it again and perhaps do a lot more. This Donors Choose website is just marvelous – easily the best designed, best operated charity site I have ever seen.
I’ll even bet that if A. picks another project related to journalism and proposes that we fund it, we would do it. Wouldn’t we?
NINE? Holy crap, Hoppy, that’s fantastic! Go you guys!
I have this idea about getting a BUNCH of us filthy hippie bloggers together to raise journalism funds on our unethical, poorly sourced, killing-the-poor-AP sites. I bet with a Coalition of the Sick of Being Characterized as Killing Journalism, we could make a serious dent in the totality of the projects there.
A.
The First Draft J-projects were filled up when I got to them so I trolled about on Donors Choose and found a music class that needed scores and they now are rolling in the arts. This is a good system.
The CSBCKJ just isn’t going to make a dent anywhere until they change that name a bit.
I need to also say that my attempt to enlist a local group to adopt a project very dear to their hearts flew like a brick. Not one person I solicited even visited the website! So, it isn’t just that great website that works so well, it is also the great groups who can unite to help out a school classroom. This being such a group, somebody give us another of the projects that we can unite to help.