All students deserve to have the tools they need to learn, and nobody believes that more than Music & Arts. That’s why we’ve teamed up with Adopt a Classroom and have become an official Adopt a Classroom vendor. As a vendor, we help provide band instruments and accessories to teachers involved in the Adopt a Classroom initiative. Through this partnership, teachers can spend their AdoptAClassroom.org funds on our site to provide their students with a wide variety of woodwind, brass, string, and percussion instruments, accessories, and books.
Read on to learn more about Adopt a Classroom and how you can help music teachers provide school supplies to their students without having to spend their own money.
What’s Adopt a Classroom?
Did you know that 96% of teachers use their own money to purchase school supplies for their students, and spend an average of $740 a year of their own money on classroom supplies? With budget cuts, less state funding, and a growing pool of low-income students, there’s a huge resource gap in many classrooms. Kids just aren’t getting the materials they need to learn, and teachers are making up the difference with their own hard earned cash. This is where Adopt a Classroom comes in.
Their mission is to advance equity in education by powering today’s classrooms to prepare tomorrow’s graduates. There are a lot of ways companies and individuals alike can join Adopt a Classroom in making a direct difference in education across the country.
How Can I Support Adopt a Classroom?
There are lots of ways you can pitch in and lend a hand. You can either donate directly or start fundraising as an individual or team. Adopt a Classroom takes the guesswork out of the process by clearly laying out the different campaigns worth supporting. The campaigns change all the time, but right now some of the more popular ones include:
- California Wildfires 2018
- STEM Fund
- New Teachers Fund
- Inclusive Classroom Fund
- Hurricane Maria Classroom
Once you click on a campaign you have the option to donate directly or join a fundraiser. Some only allow you to donate to the fund directly, but regardless you’ll know your donated dollars are helping teachers across the country provide their students with the materials they need to succeed.
This is How Your Donations are Put to Work
One cool thing about Adopt a Classroom (besides, well…everything!) is their transparency. Their annual reports, tax returns, financial audits, and legal documents are available to the public, and the impact section of their site is updated regularly. Here’s what Adopt a Classroom has accomplished to date (at the time of publishing):
- 178,000+ classrooms adopted
- 4.5 million students benefited in all 50 states
- $36 million donated to classrooms
Adopt a Classroom even works with corporate and small business sponsors. So whether you’re a small business owners, an individual, or a large corporation, Adopt a Classroom makes donating easy. So what are you waiting for? Join Music & Arts and Adopt a Classroom in our crusade to bring teachers across the country the supplies they need to effectively do their jobs.
If you donated and still want to do more, here are five things you can do to keep music education in schools.