Education Charities Worth Supporting
Perhaps you’ve seen the recent viral video of teachers in South Dakota at center ice during the intermission of a junior hockey game, scrambling to stuff dollar bills down their shirts, money that is meant to be used for their classrooms.
After widespread backlash, the organizers of the spectacle – the team and a mortgage company – apologized for the spectacle saying, “Although our intent was to provide a positive and fun experience for teachers, we can see how it appears to be degrading and insulting towards the participating teachers and the teaching profession as a whole. We deeply regret and apologize to all teachers for any embarrassment this may have caused.”
What a society supports and how they support it is a reflection of its collective values. The display in South Dakota suggests not great things about what people were valuing in the moment. The upside is that it shined a light on the need for additional funding for schools.
At Educational Endeavors we want to help students succeed in the world we have. But we also want to help make the world a place more open to and supportive of the needs of students.
Since this is the giving time of year, we like to make a donation on behalf of our clients to a worthy educational charity. This year, that organization is the Human Restoration Project. The Human Restoration Project is working to achieve systemic change in education in order to make schools more human-centered and focused on the well-being of students, staff, teachers, and parents. (Full disclosure: EE staffer John Warner is on the board of this organization.)
We also want to take this time to bring a number of other worthy organizations to your attention as possible recipients of your own giving.
Thank you to all of our clients, students, tutors, and collaborators. It’s been a challenging year, but we feel we’ve done a lot of good. We hope you’ll consider supporting these organizations who are doing good too.
(Click the links for more information on each organization.)
The Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund
The Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund works to ensure that financial constraints do not hinder a young person’s ability to obtain a quality education by giving high school scholarship assistance and educational support to Chicago students from under-resourced neighborhoods. DMSF seeks to make a life-altering difference in the lives of its Scholars by providing them with the best opportunity to succeed in high school and college.
The University of Illinois at Chicago U & I Care Fund
Unexpected emergency financial constraints are one of the most common causes of dropping out of college. University emergency funds help students overcome temporary homelessness, hunger, transportation problems, or lack of access to necessary educational resources. Relatively small amounts can make the difference between maintaining progress toward graduation, and experiencing a setback that may take years to recover from.
Higher Achievement seeks to build a world where every child’s promise and potential are realized, regardless of circumstance by providing academic and social-emotional tools and encouragement.
Girls Health Ed’s mission is to advance gender equality by fostering empowered, healthy, and informed decision making in adolescent girls and young women through comprehensive health and sexuality education.
Open Books provides literacy experiences for tens of thousands of readers each year through inspiring programs aimed at increasing student literacy and interest in reading, and via the sale of new and used donated books that helps put more books in the hands of more students.