Past projects 12
Book Making in the Library
Funded Apr 10, 2024These book making supplies have added a wonderful project and an extra layer of activity to our library. Thank you so much for giving our students, all recent arrivals to the United States, access to such beautiful materials.
The first group to make books in the library last year was a class of Students with Limited or Interupted Formal Education, SLIFE, from Central America, Haiti, and Syria. It felt very special for them to create a book to hold the words of their story that they had worked so hard on in class. They were justifiably proud of their work. One of the boys had worked as a tailor in his country and was able to help his fellow students use the tools of needle, thread, awl and thimble. This cooperation was great for his self-esteem and all the students enjoyed working on such a novel project together.
This year, we are looking forward to groups of students coming to the library to "bind their words" into books. They are creating books but also little works of art and we are grateful to be able to offer this kind of project in the library. Thank you for your support!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
What's Happening at the Library?
Funded Sep 19, 2024Super grateful to get this funded so quickly! Thank you all. Soon the students will be able to find the books on their own and I will be able to focus on making sure the library works for everyone. I can't wait to see the fun fliers they design!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
This classroom project was brought to life by The Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation and 6 other donors.Learn to Use the Library
Funded Mar 21, 2024Our students are so excited to check out our manga titles! I knew that I needed to keep them near the main desk of the library or they might "walk away" because students love them so much. Now that we have these special shelves for special books, the kids know where to go to find them. Thank you for making our library more navigable and easier to use.
Our library is very small and we are blessed with the problem of too many books. We are looking forward to the day when we are relocated to a larger space with a bigger library. These portable shelves will be able to come with us wherever we go.
This year our art classes will decorate the shelves so they truly feel like part of the BINcA library. Thank you so much for helping our fledgling library take flight!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
Kindles for the Library
Funded Dec 4, 2023Thank you so much for your support of this project! Our library is very new and very small but our students come from all over the world and have diverse interests. We can never have enough books in all the languages our students speak and these books are often very expensive. Having Kindles in the library opens up new possibilities for our students, particularly in languages other than English.
For example, Henry, one of our juniors from Honduras, prefers to read in Spanish but we only have a few titles in Spanish. We have been able to find titles for him in the Boston Public Library and then he can borrow the ebook right away to put on a kindle. He has already read two books!
There are also some very trendy popular books - who can keep up? - and the knidles allow our students to borrow those books without us having to invest in every popular book and without the kids needing to wait for the budget cycle to come around again.
Thank you again for opening the world of books a little wider for my students!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
This classroom project was brought to life by A family that cares about Boston and 10 other donors.Multicultural Book Clubs
Funded Sep 18, 2023Thank you all for valuing diverse books the way we do at BINcA! As we try to build excitement for our new library, we know that it's so important to make sure that students find themselves in the books they see on the shelves. Our students have had so much fun looking at all the new books and meeting with their Cultural Club to choose a book for their own book club.
We were able to provide each Cultural Club with two or three choices of books that they can discuss and then recommend to others. Our Asian Club chose a graphic novel and the Central American Club had a couple of choices of books that were available in both English and Spanish. These books all felt accessible to our students and interesting in ways that made them excited to share.
As we build the culture of reading in our school, diverse books are so important! I can't wait to have a full library and be able to display these books prominently. Thank you all for your support!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
Back to School Flags
Funded Nov 28, 2022Our students all began their education in a different country and often feel a bit lost and overwhelmed when they begin at Boston International. For us, these flags are a way to say "Welcome to America! We see you." The students are proud of their heritage and they feel more connected to the school and the community when they see their flag hanging next to the flags of their friends.
As an International School, we have several events every year for students to share their culture with others. Many of these events are country or region specific. Our Central American students, for example, plan and host our Fiesta Navidad, our holiday party. Other events explicitly invite everyone to participate equally and share their culture with their fellow students. In October of 2022, our 4th annual Bridging Borders event was an explosion of cultural joy and pride as every club was invited to share food, information and a performance with the community. Students dressed up, prepared displays to share information about their culture and shared food from their country with their friends.
Thank you all for helping us make our school a welcoming place!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 5 other donors.Flags of the World so Our Students Feel at Home
Funded Sep 25, 2021Thank you all so much for funding our flags project! The students are so happy to see their flags on display, especially for special events. We celebrated International Migrants Day with a Central American fiesta. We now have many students from Guatemala and El Salvador so those students were proud to celebrate and share their culture with others.
We also celebrated Hispanic Heritage month in two ways: first we had a gallery of all the flags as well as a door decorating contest all over the school. Then, at the end of the month (October) we had an open mike/talent show for our annual Bridging Borders event. This commemorates the Parsley Massacre which took place in 1937 on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We use this date to remind ourselves of the conflict between cultures in the past and all we can do to overcome that conflict here in the US.
We are looking forward to celebrating culture in many ways for the rest of this year and beyond! We will have a Lunar New Year event, a community Iftar and a Culture Week celebration at the end of the year.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
More Food for Fuel for School
Funded Dec 18, 2018Thank you all so much for your contribution to this project! My office has now become the go-to spot for snacks for hungry students. For many students, the lunch is not enough food to get them through the day, especially if they plan to stay after school to finish homework or participate in a group project. For other students, especially the ones who have recently arrived to the US, the school lunch is sometimes very foreign and almost inedible. They need something and the soup is a consistently tasty choice to which they can add hot sauce ; ) which always helps!
Many of our students are very recently arrived to the United States so asking for a snack is also a language activity. There are a few students who take responsibility for distributing the snacks during lunch or after school and they gently help the new students learn how to ask for what they want in English. All our students are relatively recent immigrants so they are sympathetic but also insistent that their fellow students develop those skills.
This project gave us the idea to create a mini "business" where now some students sell soup for slightly more than the cost in order to purchase other healthy snacks like the cereal bars and oatmeal to give away. The soup costs approximately $.50 per cup but, by charging $1, we are able to keep the "snack drawer" full of snacks for free. Students are happy to have more choices and proud to know that they are helping others in the process.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
This classroom project was brought to life by Salesforce.org and 7 other donors.Stay Warm, Study Hard!
Funded Dec 11, 2018Here is a thank you message from our student organizers:
Thank you so much, for supporting our donor choose project this year. This year for our capstone project we have being researching youth homelessness and how it impacts students. Through our research we found that homeless students are more likely to suffer from mental illness/ social-emotional problems like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, etc. This is a problem that is affecting students in Boston as well. In 2017 an estimation of about 3,500 were homeless. Also homeless students are at a higher risk of dropping out school.
As soon as we started to learn about this issue, we wanted to focus on BINcA students that are homeless. Mrs. Jackson introduced us to Donor Choose, where we received some donations. Thanks to the money that they donated to us, we were able to buy jackets and fleeces, and spread the word around BINcA staff. Whenever a student needed a jacket or a fleece, the teacher sent us an email providing us with information about the student. What they didn't tell us was the name of the students, because we know that students may feel embarrassed, so it was important to keep it confidential.
After doing this project, we learned that there are students that really needed this help but they weren't aware of the resources available to them. We helped about 14 students who needed assistance/resources. I think that the impact that this project will have over BINcA and its community is that everyone will be a little more aware of what is going on between students, and teachers will pay even more close attention to the students and their needs. And students will have the confidence to talk to their teacher if they need something, because they will know that there's help available for them and that their teachers will be there if they need something.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
This classroom project was brought to life by Salesforce.org and 2 other donors.Support the Teams: Round 2!
Funded Jan 13, 2019First of all, we are very grateful for DonorsChoose, Dicks Sporting Goods, and all donors that made this project possible. It will greatly benefit our students athletics and our school community. Some of the resources that we received include softball fast pitch gloves and soccer solo trainers. It is just about time for spring sports and our students athletics are psyched about the new equipment. They will put that to use during baseball and softball practices and games right away. The soccer teams will look forward to using the new equipment this fall. It has increased motivation and confidence for more student athletes to participate this year.
When the student athletes first heard about the donations their faces were filled with delight. Our students love to participate in extracurricular activities, but often lack financial ability to buy equipment that the school cannot provide. Most of our students come from low income families and are also immigrants, which creates a double hardship for them. Sometimes our teachers go above and beyond our responsibilities to accommodate their needs and depend on organizations such as DonorsChoose to maximize student learning experiences.
Our student athletes are ready to put the equipment to use. Students are eager to participate and are ready to compete against other sports teams. Students love representing our school and themselves during competitions. We are excited to see the wonderful things they will do on the field this spring and upcoming fall. We plan on creating other projects in the future to expand students participation in athletics.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Jackson
This classroom project was brought to life by DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation - Sports Matter and one other donor.