YO BRO IT’S ME LITTY

I had heard cool things about DonorsChoose.org but last night was the first time I visited the website. It is awesome.

Donors Choose was started in the year 2000 in the Bronx by a social studies teacher. It is a not-for-profit website that allows public school teachers to request classroom project materials by submitting a one page essay and listing the exact resources needed. Individuals who visit the site can then choose to fund programs in part or in full. If Donors give over $100 or make the final donation to complete a project they receive a “thank you” package from the class with photos and thank you cards from the students and teachers. You can read all the details on how it works.

I browsed through a bunch of projects and decided to donate a few bucks to a middle school class in the Bronx that would like to buy sports biographies. The students will be asked to read a biography and then write their own biography about someone in their family, in the class or on someone famous. You can read all about the project right here.

As I wrote in my comment I chose this project because “I love to read and love sports and the combination of the two was magical to me when I was growing up and still is to me today!” I’m convinced I learned how to read through Matt Christopher books and by my Bar Mitzvah I had polished off biographies of Hank Aaron, Wayne Gretzky, Tommy John, Pete Maravich, Ali, Jackie Robinson, Moe Berg, Hank Greenberg and a many other sports legends.

The total cost for all of the books is $270. My donation was the first one made to this project. It would be neat if The Littyhoops tribe could all donate to completely fund this project. It only takes a few bucks and about 10 minutes (the website is superbly designned) to contribute. I’ll even make this easier on you. If you read and enjoyed all my posts in India then please feel obligated to make a donation. If you want to get even more ambitious, find another project of your choosing and spread the word to everyone that you know. Donorschoose.org makes it very easy to do that.

Finally, you may be noticing a theme between this post and my review of Kiva.org a few months back. I’m becoming more interested in how the web can enable and facilitate good in this world. Please hit me up if you are also interested by this opportunity. I have tons of thoughts and ideas flying through my head!

Here is a great documentary on Donors Choose.