Union gives $400K to teachers across the U.S. for school supplies
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Teachers spend a lot of their own money to supply and furnish their classrooms to give students the best opportunities.
The American Federation of Teachers announced it fulfilled hundreds of educators’ requests through DonorsChoose — gifting nearly half a million dollars for school supplies to educators across the United States.
Newsy spoke with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, about how the initiative came about.
Today, we're announcing our campaign to fund @DonorsChoose requests from over 800 teachers and school staff for cleaning supplies, learning materials, books, personal hygiene products, PPE and other materials. #ReclaimOurFuture pic.twitter.com/s7CI9ETqIm
— AFT (@AFTunion) March 4, 2022
“Teachers need supplies all the time. They dig out of their own pockets … not just for things like cleaning supplies, but for supplies that kids need — books, materials, crayons, scissors. And in places where parents can’t afford this, teachers do it all the time,” said Weingarten. “When you look at the DonorsChoose website, you see thousands of teachers campaigning and asking for supplies. We took every request that had masks plus something else and fulfilled all of them on March 4 as a way of trying to say to teachers, ‘Thank you for all you do and we need to help you.'”
The American Federation of Teachers funded requests from over 600 schools and 800 teachers.
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