TL-DR: We are not worthy! We are not worthy!!!

Background: I am a 7th grade Reading and Writing teacher in a border town (Mexican border). I have been teaching for 5 years, and I make $28,000 a year. Obviously I don’t teach for the money, of course. I teach because I love, love, love it. That said, teaching is the only philanthropy I am involved in. Suffice it to say, I teach, come home and cuddle with my dogs and my husband, go to bed, and do it all over again.

Today, after a long day of teaching (and parent emailing, reading intervention, writing intervention, and a volleyball game- I coach too!), my husband and I came home to a giant, heavy package. He dragged it in and said to me, “Okay…soooooo a few weeks back I signed you up for Reddit Gifts- for a teacher gift. This is it!” I reddit, but mostly stick to r/wtf, /frugal, and r/emailsfromgrandma (holla!). I hadn’t yet come across this new and magical reddit room. Husband quickly explained the program and then let me tear into the package. The picture does not do it justice. U/lobin generously provided me with every essential I could ask for as a teacher: composition books, spiral notebook, pencils, Sharpies, dry erase board eraser, chalk board eraser, dry erase markers, pens, post-it notes, tape dispenser WITH tape… and not only that, but /u/lobin pledged 100 every month to my classroom. I think I would feel guilty even considering taking her up on it, but I am just completely shocked at the generosity of a stranger.

Little could u/lobin know, we don’t make enough money to really go on spending sprees for our classroom (although my husband spent like 2 hundo last year and I threatened his life never to do it again). Instead I choose to save money and repurpose materials. For example, yesterday I started a new writing intervention unit with my 7th graders. I wanted each of them to have a notebook or journal to write in every day. None of them had an extra to use just for this purpose, so I went to my stash. My stash? I’ll admit- on the last day of each school year, I go around the school and go through the trash bins. Kids inevitably have tossed half-used notebooks and torn binders. I grab them, spruce them up, and put them in my stash.

I’m not sharing this as a pity party, but to show how creative some teachers end up getting just to make things work for their kids. At my school, we didn’t get classroom supplies. No budget for it. That’s okay! I make do, of course. But tomorrow, guess what? I get to grab my kid’s used notebooks with no covers (or in one case, a folder with paper in it), and say to them, “Guess what? There are people in this world who want you to be successful. A random stranger on the internet sent us a gift so that we can do our schoolwork like princes rather than paupers.” To put it simply, you cannot image how much this means to me, u/lobin. Thank you.

On a side note, I had a bad day at school today. Teachers today don’t just teach. And lately, we’ve been taking on a lot of outside duties and tasks that can really, really bog us down. You know, I still love my job. But getting this gift was a game changer for me. U/lobin- you’ve not only fed me, you’ve inspired me. Time to go pay it forward.