@SFConcierge's Social Media Challenge Giving Page

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Thank you for your very generous donations for art materials. It is uplifting and inspiring for the students to have so many choices of mediums to use to create beauty and style within and around their work.

My students used the metallic watercolors to paint birds for a piece to sell at our school's annual fundraising auction, and they worked perfectly to to create the luminous quality of feathers. We used the special, ebony, drawing pencils for some awesome portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The colored pencils are in constant use for everything from science drawings to challenge word illustrations and everything in-between. We used the origami paper to make beautiful frames for school photos. The Tru-ray construction paper is far superior to the regular kind, and the green made a lovely folder to hold all the work students produced in their studies of plants.

I could go on and on telling you how useful your gift has been and continues to be. Everyday we appreciate something you gave us as we use it for an assignment or on a project. As the school budget really shrank this year, we appreciate your donation more than ever. We would never have been able to provide these resources for ourself. Your donation is like a little oasis in the desert! Know that your money was well spent.

Once again, Thank you from our hearts.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Engler

Thank you so much for your generous donation to my school's art program. It was wonderful to come back to school in 2010 and have our shelves be fully stocked with new and beautiful art materials. I feel that the materials themselves hold a message that affects learning in my classroom: the quality and caliber of the materials your donation afforded lets my students know loud and clear that their work is important. It tells them that they've been given the optimum conditions to explore, invent and discover in the arts. Your generosity also lets them know that they have the support of the community, and the beauty of philanthropy.

I'm looking forward to a great time in my classes, making use of your donation.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Keir

I want to thank you greatly for your donation to my classroom. Our trip to see the dance performance, People Like Me, held so much meaning for the students in my class. My class is a diverse group of students who enjoyed seeing dance and hearing music from many of their home countries. In addition, students recognized their language being sung. My students were so engaged during the performance because it had so much relevance to their lives.

As I follow the Social Studies curriculum for 1st grade, we study characteristics of cultures and how they are alike and different. Our trip to the dance performance is a great jumping off point to discuss culture. Students already have the background knowledge that culture includes music, dance and clothing.

This field trip to see cultural expression will support my students Social Studies learning throughout the year.

I can not thank you enough for giving my students this opportunity!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Olsen

Thanks so much for your generous donation to my school's Art Program. We were so excited to open the boxes and find the supplies inside: sheets of beautiful colored and textured glass and all the hardware we've been wanting to start working in glass! In the next few weeks we will be putting these to great use, forming glass sculptures in our school's kiln.

My students and I are very appreciative of your donation. I've taken your concrete example to teach my students about philanthropy and the importance of giving back to ones community. After our class is over and my students move on, I'm sure that the example your donation provides will mean a lot in the development and lives of my students. Imagine, someone they don't know cared about them enough to give them a gift. This will not be easily forgotten!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Keir

Thank you all so much for the generosity you have shown to both me my students. My students have learned a great lesson concerning the care and compassion that exists in our world. We have been closely following current events and the students have organized a small but incredibly passionate bake-sale to benefit the people of Haiti. I believe that this action of yours has planted a seed in our youth that will continue to grow and thrive for many years to come.

The kids truly enjoy using their wit and talent to create videos based on the literature we're studying in class. Their favorite part is sharing it with the class over the LCD projector and the fervent applause afterward! The small netbook is often passed around the room, and students even come by at lunch to research, check their email, or just surf the web. A lot of kids don't have the internet at home and the other available computers are snatched up quite quickly during lunch time and studyhall. Technology in the classroom has been relatively stagnant since the early 90's. While it is out there and available, it is a great challenge for school districts to obtain and upkeep technology. Students understand and use some of the newest technology in their personal lives and when it is brought into their academic lives the connection and motivation it creates is phenomenal. Facebook as a means of character analysis? Why not! Tweeting thoughts and reflections to each other while reading Toni Morrison? Amazingly catchy! My eventual goal is to have enough laptops in the classroom so that students can have access to these resources as much as possible. Social networking as a means of educating our youth and promoting both self and worldly awareness is something innovating and incredibly possible.

Thank you again for making possibilities become realities! Your kindness will reverberate in my classroom throughout the years.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Cossick

Thank you all so much for the generosity you have shown to both me my students. My students have learned a great lesson concerning the care and compassion that exists in our world. We have been closely following current events and the students have organized a small but incredibly passionate bake-sale to benefit the people of Haiti. I believe that this action of yours has planted a seed in our youth that will continue to grow and thrive for many years to come.

The kids truly enjoy using their wit and talent to create videos based on the literature we're studying in class. Their favorite part is sharing it with the class over the LCD projector and the fervent applause afterward! The small netbook is often passed around the room, and students even come by at lunch to research, check their email, or just surf the web. A lot of kids don't have the internet at home and the other available computers are snatched up quite quickly during lunch time and studyhall. Technology in the classroom has been relatively stagnant since the early 90's. While it is out there and available, it is a great challenge for school districts to obtain and upkeep technology. Students understand and use some of the newest technology in their personal lives and when it is brought into their academic lives the connection and motivation it creates is phenomenal. Facebook as a means of character analysis? Why not! Tweeting thoughts and reflections to each other while reading Toni Morrison? Amazingly catchy! My eventual goal is to have enough laptops in the classroom so that students can have access to these resources as much as possible. Social networking as a means of educating our youth and promoting both self and worldly awareness is something innovating and incredibly possible.

Thank you again for making possibilities become realities! Your kindness will reverberate in my classroom throughout the years.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Cossick

I am writing to thank all of you for your generous donations to my classroom. My kids love playing with the Legos, and so do I. Productive, non-competitive play is a great activity for when kids need to do something that is calm and quiet.

I have found that this is an activity that does not lead to argument or fighting and it is terrific to have the opportunity for some conflict-free activity in my classroom of emotionally disturbed students who easily can get angry or frustrated with themselves and others.

Thanks again for your kindness, and best wishes to you and yours in the new year!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. McKitrick

The printmaking project you so generously contributed to was an incredible experience for over one hundred student participants! We dedicated three weeks of art workshops to the project, learning techniques, creating individual collages of cityscapes and ultimately printing out the final masterpieces. The prints are now matted and hanging in the school auditorium as part of our Winter Exhibition.

This was a challenging learning process for our K-3 students and the project attracted the participation of over twenty parent volunteers! Students learned about concepts such as perspective and overlapping. After doing some initial drawings many of them seemed perplexed by how to recreate their cityscapes using ribbon, feathers, fabric, buttons, etc. Then after painstakingly building their collages they were asked to take an even greater leap of faith and roll black and blue ink all over the surface of their creations.

Last, came the magical moment when after placing a sheet of white paper over the ink-covered surface and rubbing it feverishly, each student lifted their paper to reveal a graphically stunning print. Many of them literally oohed and awed. As you can see from the photos, the results are both dramatic and exquisite. We can't thank you enough for making this ambitious project an experience that these students will never forget!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Graham