The Teacher’s Fund: Because TeachersHave Enough Homework

There are certain things teachers should reasonably be expected to bring to school. Patience, for one. A working knowledge of long division. The supernatural ability to detect chewing gum from thirty paces.

What they should not have to bring is half the contents of Staples, purchased with their own money.

And yet, back in 2002, Santa Barbara community leader and Village Properties owner Renee Grubb noticed that local teachers were regularly dipping into their own paychecks to buy the supplies their classrooms needed. Pencils. Paper. Art materials. The everyday stuff that makes a classroom actually work.

So she did something about it.

Teacher’s Fund was born with a refreshingly simple, chalkboard-clean idea. Give teachers the resources they need to teach, and let them decide where those resources will make the biggest difference. More than two decades later, that idea has grown into an organization that has invested more than $2.5 million in Santa Barbara-area classrooms.

Which buys rather a lot of pencils… but pencils are only the beginning.

Teacher’s Fund grants have helped bring robotics into classrooms, launch science experiments, grow butterfly gardens and support music programs, alongside providing notebooks, art supplies and all those less glamorous essentials without which even the most inspirational lesson plan quickly becomes a fairly inspirational conversation.

The point is not really the stuff. It is what teachers can do with it.

A box of paints is just a box of paints until somebody puts it in front of a child with an idea. A robotics kit is a collection of mysterious little components until a student discovers they can make something move. A packet of seeds can become a garden, a science lesson and, quite possibly, an argument about whose turn it is to water the thing.

That spirit sits behind the annual Teacher’s Fund School Supplies Drive, the organization’s signature fund raiser, and the source of the majority of the money used to award classroom grants throughout the year.

And because fundraising is considerably more enjoyable when pizza and ice cream are involved, the campaign culminates with the Donor Celebration on Tuesday, September 1, from 4.30 to 7 pm at the Village Properties Courtyard on State Street.

There will be food from the Lucca Pizza Truck, treats from A La Carte Ice Cream Truck, drinks courtesy of The Bottega Bar, live music, a silent auction and a photo booth. In other words, considerably more entertainment than you generally associate with buying notebooks.

Individuals, families and businesses can support the drive through monetary donations, sponsorships or contributions of items, services and gift cards for the silent auction. Every contribution feeds back into grants for local classrooms.

There is something pleasingly direct about the whole enterprise.

Teacher’s Fund is not pretending it can untangle every knot in education funding. In fact, its own materials acknowledge that it cannot solve budget constraints at the federal, state or district level. What it can do is make a difference one classroom at a time.

And sometimes that is exactly where change ought to begin.

With one teacher who has an idea but not the materials. One classroom that could do something brilliant with a little help. One student who discovers they love science because somebody found the money for an experiment, or a student who discovers art, and themselves as an artist, because there happened to be paints on the table.

Big ideas, after all, often begin with very small supplies… and preferably ones the teacher didn’t have to buy themselves.

Visit www.supportteachersfund.org for more information