Past projects 3
Safely Living on Our Own
Funded Jan 26, 2022We are so grateful for your donation to our program! We have a stellar group of young adults who are learning everything they need to know to help them lead an independent life, and your donation is helping them succeed.
Our program is conducted in a community apartment. Because of this, and the money needed to fund individual activities or groceries, we needed to keep it safe from theft. They are learning how to be good stewards of their finances with the safe purchased through this project.
The printer is helping us with a multitude of things - one of which is the ability to print out recipes the young adults are cooking. It is also allowing us to print curriculum needed to help the young adults learn valuable skills like check writing, budgeting and navigating the community on public transit.
It's a sweet experience to watch them learn how to be better adults and do it on their own. Thank you again for your support!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Forsythe
This classroom project was brought to life by A Northern California family and 3 other donors.On Our Own
Funded Dec 4, 2015We are filled with gratitude for your generous donation to our program! We used the funds for this project to purchase two iPad minis and protective cases. We have a great program that helps young adults with special needs gain skills that they need in order to live on their own. Our classroom is an apartment so we don't always have access to all the technology that a traditional school site would have. The teacher has one computer and with 8 students, it makes it challenging to have them looking up pertinent information online that they may need to find.
Here are some examples of how they use the iPads - the students are learning to cook independently, so they are frequently looking up new recipes to use, as well as ways to do various kitchen tasks such as how to cut an avocado. The students receive mobility training, they use the iPads for accessing the Regional Transit site to complete trip planning, learn the bus arrival and departure times. Students also receive instruction in Money Management. They use the iPads to access their bank accounts and to keep track of their expenses. We have witnessed students who originally had limited access and instruction to using an iPad. These students have gained an incredible amount of independence accessing information that is valuable towards reaching their goals of self sufficiency.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Forsythe
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 4 other donors.Apartment Living for Special Ed Students
Funded Aug 22, 2014We are so grateful for the generous donations made on our behalf! Our students were so excited to see the much needed additions to our apartment. They had a great time opening the boxes and assembling the items – it was like Christmas! The place has improved immensely because of your generosity. It looks like a new apartment and feels so much more organized and clean.
We were able to update the student's room with matching bedspreads. They brighten up the room and are really easy for the students to use when they are making the beds. In the student's room we also purchased a nice bookshelf so that we could place all our recipe books and binders in an organized fashion. Before we had the bookshelf, the cookbooks and binders were all cluttered on the top of a dresser. With them more accessible and visible we are using them more efficiently. The vacuum is 100% better than what we had – it almost makes vacuuming fun! You should have seen how much dust and dirt we collected on our first use – the teachers are jealous and wish we had it at home! The red chairs in our living room are very comfortable and give us nice seating when we are working on our classwork or our food journals. Before we were using wicker chairs and so these chairs are so much sturdier for our young adults. We have also been able to use the small appliances like the blender and crock pot to enhance our learning of cooking. It has been fun making chili in our crock pot for the students to take home and also milk shakes in our blender on our recreation and leisure Fridays.
This program has been in place for many years and receives no funding to update or improve the living items we use during our school week. We rely on donations. Everything gets well used and a lot of our furnishings are very old and outdated. The additions we added through your generous donation have made a huge difference in our success and happiness. It has improved the look of the apartment immensely. We are on our way to helping our young adults be more self-sufficient and gain their independence through your help. Thank You! ...from the bottom of our hearts!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Forsythe
This classroom project was brought to life by Gates Foundation Back To School and 8 other donors.