Past projects 5
Instilling a Love for Reading
Funded Mar 17, 2025Thank you so much for your generosity to our remote classroom! In our village, the kids tend to have spotty attendance in elementary. Because of this, some students get behind in reading. I have been trying to combat this with my students by providing them with enjoyable texts. They have recently got hooked onto Arthur books and Berenstain books, and we were missing some in our classroom. Your donations to this project gave us more books that interest them! They are so very excited to read the books.
Also, the Native American books are a great addition. We are Alaska Native, so it is good to have resources to read about other Native American cultures. The students here mostly only travel to Nome or Gambell, so their prior knowledge of the outside world beyond Nome needs to be built. These Native American books are perfect to expand our view of globalization. Thank you so much again for providing our classroom with essential resources.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Josephine
Snacks for Our Classroom
Funded Mar 12, 2025Thank you SO much for supporting our classroom with snacks! The kids have been enjoying them. Here on St. Lawrence Island, food and snacks at the store is very expensive, 2-3 times more expensive than the prices in Anchorage. Because we live on such a remote place, we 100% depend on planes to bring food and groceries in. This in itself is another challenge, because we also are at the mercy of the weather. Weather either in Savoonga or Nome can prevent planes from coming for days or even weeks. When this happens, the store gets bare shelves and freezers. Additionally, most of this village depends heavily on foodstamps to buy groceries. Some are still waiting on theirs to get approved, and those who do have it run out in middle of the month. Food security is a huge struggle here, so it is always good for teachers to have snacks on hand for the kids. Thank you so much again for your support to our classroom.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Josephine
Misc. Essentials for Alaska Village Classroom
Funded Mar 9, 2025Thank you so much for the misc. classroom supplies! We are most thankful for the paper, we had run out of lined paper some time ago. We do lots of reading and writing, and we did not expect to run out of paper before school ends. The number line is making a difference for kinesthetic learners-in our Alaska Native culture, we are hands-on learners. The number line is a perfect fit for math computations. We also are so thankful for the propel tablets, stepping stool, turn in trays, type c chargers, and bookmarks. Most of these supplies are not in the store here, we only have ONE store in the whole village. Thank you very much again for supporting our learning!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Josephine
Snacks for Classroom
Funded Nov 10, 2024Thank you so much for providing snacks for our classroom! The kids here in especially loved the flamin' hot cheetos, any spicy things they like. The students here in this village are more likely to have CPT 1, so they usually need to eat more and avoid long periods of fasting to avoid low blood sugar. The store usually runs out of snacks. Speaking of store running out, we have not had planes for the LONGEST time ever due to bad weather. There has been a period of weeks of bad weather, preventing planes coming in from Nome to bring groceries and other essential needs to our store. Further, since everything has to be flown in, it makes the prices of the store go up. The prices here on St. Lawrence Island are three times the price that they would be in Anchorage. So, thank you so much again for your support. Another thing, families here struggle with food. They mainly get groceries with food stamps. Some families have NOT had their food stamp renewed, so there is a real struggle with food security. My students appreciated the treat so much. Further, some families only have neqepik (Native food), and I've heard a few families say that they are tired of eating the same Native food all the time, but they don't have a choice. Some of those families have students in my class. We are very grateful that we had some other snacks in these trying times. Thank you very much, again, from the bottom of our hearts.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Josephine
Bush Alaska Classroom Essentials
Funded Aug 14, 2024Quyana caknek (thank you very much in Central Yup'ik) for your donations! My class and I have been thankful for the materials sent. Living on a remote island by Russia, it is hard to get supplies here sometimes. And when they are in stock at the store here, they are very expensive, triple of what they would be in Anchorage, Alaska.
The toilet paper, paper towel, and baby wipes have been invaluable, especially when we did not have working water or sewer. For at least 3-4 days, our water and sewer wasn't working.
The flour enabled us to make pie crust for pumpkin pies, keurig has allowed more people with access to coffee. The clorox wipes are handy when the custodians cannot get to cleaning. The chairs have enabled us to do reading groups on the floor comfortably. And, the books have opened up a new avenue into teaching social-emotional learning.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Josephine
This classroom project was brought to life by The Gates Foundation and 6 other donors.