Past projects 6
Student-chosen Novels for our Classroom Library!
Funded Apr 7, 2016Thank you so much for your donations! These particular books have already all been "checked out" of our classroom library by girls who are deeply excited about finally having them, and we have a waitlist going for others interested. Adding these particular books, which highlight diverse identities that resonate with our girls but have never been in our classroom library, is so important and makes such an incredible difference for them - I have never seen so much enthusiasm about new books as I did when these boxes arrived. Thank you for your kind donations and know that they have made some great eighth-grade girls really happy!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Chishty
Bronx Girls In Need of Higher Level Books!
Funded Nov 7, 2015Thank you so much for your donation to my classroom - you have enormously impacted my students. Independent reading is a keystone of my work as a teacher; unless they read on their own, my students will not read and write at the levels they must to excel academically, and providing high-level books to my strongest eighth-graders improves their chances at succeeding this year and in the coming years. At schools like mine, we have no classroom libraries until we make them, so we rely on donations to supply our girls with books to read outside of school. We always hope to give them the most interesting, new, and relevant literature that we can, and your gift card allowed my co-teacher and I to hand-pick fascinating and challenging novels we knew the girls would enjoy. Thank you from me and my students, they're so excited about our new books!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Chishty
Our School Stands with Malala
Funded Sep 29, 2015Thank you so much for providing my students and me with the opportunity to see "He Named Me Malala"! As a teacher at a high-needs, all-girls school, it's so important to me that my students see examples of truly strong women of color and are given role models in the form of other young girls who, despite enormous obstacles, have succeeded in life and stood up for themselves. The girls had a great time having the theater to themselves, having the chance to discuss girls' education and Malala's work both before and after the trip, and to simply learn about the life of this incredible teenager. I was impressed by their responses after, with girls thoughtfully expressing their gratitude for their own education and new respect for their own lives and power. After the trip, all the girls debriefed with teachers, discussing the film, their own lives, and what they might aspire to in raising their voice as Malala did.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Chishty
Help a Bronx Girls Club go to D.C.!
Funded May 19, 2015Our D.C. trip was an enormous success and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our girls, none of whom have been to the city. With the help of this funding, we were able to give these girls the kind of weekend their wealthier peers find mainstays in their education: a nice hotel in which to bond with new and old friends, a beautiful new place to explore with guidance, and a chance to visit both top universities and fascinating historical sites. We will never forget these three days, and all that we experienced and saw. Thank you so much for everything!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Chishty
The Girl's Club: We're Hungry & We Need Your Help!
Funded Mar 12, 2015Hope you're all doing well! I'm writing to thank you for supporting the Bronx Leadership Academy II Girls Club with your gift cards, given to us after I was lucky enough to win the ListServe. This year, I started our school's Girls Club (also known as Women Crush Mondays), a group of 20 girls chosen from each grade for their commitment, academic potential, and thoughtfulness. Every Monday, we meet as a community for a variety of reasons: to share the wins and struggles from our weeks and to support one another, to visit museums and cultural spaces across New York, and to explore college-readiness through guest speakers, discussions of race, class, and higher education, and community service.
This is the first year of this club's existence, and it has been incredible. Our upperclassmen have become proud mentors to our freshmen girls, imparting advice and growing as they take responsibility for their younger peers. Our girls have engaged in incredible, challenging conversations around sexuality, racism, and identity that leave all of us thinking for weeks. A recent visit to the New Museum inspired several girls to consider work in the arts, something they had never before considered. The week before, girls teamed up to write and illustrate children's book for an international organization.
As small a thing as it may seem, none of this could have happened without the snacks we purchased using your DonorsChoose cards. Our girls all qualify for free- or reduced-lunch, but generally none of them (like their peers) eat at all during the day. Schools like ours offer school lunches that are truly revolting, no matter how hungry you are, and usually students will spend a few quarters at the bodega after school to buy a bag of chips for the day. With the popcorn, granola bars, and everything else we purchased using your cards, we fixed this problem: our girls could focus, with full stomachs, on the important work. Snacks made it easy for them to think and talk and work with one another, and for that, we are so grateful! Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help, you've given these girls a wonderful experience!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Chishty
My Tenth-Graders Need More Diverse Books!
Funded Aug 15, 2014Thank you all so, so, so much for donating to my project this summer! After adding the books we bought with your donations to our classroom library, my co-teachers and I watched every single one get checked out by students on our first Independent Reading Friday of the year. It has been amazing to watch my students latch onto these authors (Matt de la Pena has become beloved among the sophomore boys!) and read through all the books they can find by them both in our classroom and, having exhausted that, through the city's library system, which most of them had never before explored.
Independent reading is so essential for my students' chances to graduate, and seeing them show new levels of enthusiasm for it gives me and them hope. As these books continue circulating through the tenth-grade here, know that your taking a few moments to donate has resulted in so many teenagers who have never found a book in school that really gripped them, or resembled their own life, being surprised by their own desire to keep reading. Thank you for giving us these books that will reach not only this year's sophomores, but so many in future years! You are all wonderful, thoughtful people & we are so grateful for your help!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Chishty