Too late!

Many months ago the kind people at Donors Choose contacted me and offered me a $100 gift certificate to contribute to any classroom project proposed by a teacher which tickled my fancy. I looked through all the choices and felt incredibly overwhelmed so I....did nothing. Which is what I generally do whenever something overwhelms me.

Currently overwhelming me: the returnable soda cans in my basement and the other ones in my garage. I'm ignoring them. What cans?

Max's teacher asked our class to donate to a charity instead of giving her a billion "#1 Teacher!" pieces of "art". I immediately thought of the Donors Choose site. I love that these are small specific needs we can help fill with our small (or not small) donations.

We chose a project in a neighboring city (Hazel Park, for the locals) which is a school district with a 72% poverty rate. This teacher was looking for a document camera that allows many eyes to see one piece of printed material. I'd planned to share our project with you, in case you wanted to chip in for Mrs. Mac's class gift (not her full name, shockingly!).

But guess what? The entire project is now fully funded so you can't donate, even if you were dying to. No, no, no! It's over, closed, done. They're getting their document camera which allows all eyes in the classroom to see the same piece of media (a textbook, a newspaper....).

You could donate to another project though. I love the idea of this site, it's like a gift registry for teachers and their classrooms.

In other news: My sofa is in my dining room and there are three folding tables in my living room waiting for the big party Saturday.

Having a sofa in your dining room feels a little like you're living in a lounge. A very hip lounge where there's a sofa instead of tall tables and bar stools. Every time I pass by the sofa in my dining room I feel like I'm not cool enough to be there. I can almost feel the hand of the bouncer ushering me right on through to the family room where the people wearing black t shirts and black pajama pants should be.

I made a second edition of the Anti Gift Guide at the Buzz Off yesterday. I hope you enjoy and have hard earned words of wisdom to share.

Comments

[bigpikchur.blogspot.com]

Hey, when I lived in NYC, a black t-shirt and black pajama pants (as long as they were, you know, clean) could actually get you into some traditionally-difficult-to-get-into places! Not that I would know anything about that.
Jules
House of Jules

[Peeved Michelle]

I don't have ads on my blog so every now and then I put up a Donors Choose Challenge and ask my readers to donate. I like that you can just donate a little but that even a little is really helpful for what these teachers are doing. My aunt is a teacher and I know how much of what she does comes out of her own pocket.

[atxjag]

Thanks for mentioning this, I'd never heard of it before and its an amazing concept. You might also look at giveline.com, it is a pretty unique site my friends PTA uses. Similar concept, except they donate to your cause when you make a purchase. We need more things like this!

[TeriLynn]

I'm going back to the cans in your basement. I have a technique which works- We let them build up on our back porch until it's so full that the dog knocks a few out into the backyard and uses them for chew toys. At that point, we collect them and set them outside our front gate. The homeless people in the neighborhood return them for us, except they don't deliver the deposit money back. And every time, we vow to return them more often. And every time, we don't.

Of course, this system hinges upon having enough homeless people in your neighborhood that the cans will be gone within 20 minutes. I don't think your neighborhood is like that.

[lousoz]

every so often one school group or another ( usually the marching band) will hold a can drive. They send kids around the neighborhoods to collect cans that people have laying around the house.
I can speak from experience that it makes your whole day when you hit a house that hasn't returned cans for a while. :)

[Melissa Summers]

We're going to bring them down to you I think.

And yes, we've given ours to kids collecting them. I drink WAY too much soda in a day. It's humiliating how many cans I have.

[Geeky Mom]

We have so many cans in our garage that it's not possible to park a car in there. My nephew came by collecting cans a few months ago and my husband only let him take 10 bags.. I could have killed him! If I had been home, he would have received all the bags! I've offered them to my kids and my nephews and no one ever takes them.. I need some elves!

[lousoz]

er, um, please don't? :)

we have many here that don't make it back to the store in a timely fashion. It's gotten to the point that I get pissy with my husband for having a beer because I don't want to deal with the can!

[Trish]

Donors Choose does rock. Occasionally, the classroom benefiting from your donation will send thank you cards (and sometimes pictures of the kids using whatever it is you funded), and that is just about the greatest thing in the world. Today I got the second pack of cards from one of the projects I funded recently, and I was so excited I couldn't even wait to get into my apartment before I opened the envelope and started reading the cards. They're awesome and incredibly cute. Yay, Donors Choose (and Ms. Peters' class), thanks for making my day!

[Big Momma Pimpalishisness]

I've always thought that I'd like to have all lazy boy chairs instead of dining room chairs around my table. It'd be much more comfortable and then the only time I'd have to leave the table is to pee and I'm sure even that could be solved.