Among The Things Some Teachers Pay For Out Of Pocket--Food For Kids

My son's teacher keeps a small stash of food (microwave soup and the like) for when a kid didn't bring lunch and their lunch money account goes empty. Earlier in the school year, I had forgotten to add money to the account so my son benefited from this.

The school will provide a cheese sandwich if the lunch money account is empty, but from my son's reaction there is some degree of stigma attached to that cheese sandwich.

I now have money set up to automatically transfer into the account each month, but I know there are kids in need who would otherwise go without a lunch.

a carton of milk-nothing more. The high school has two charges and they get nothing.

Was a teacher for forty years and furnished many a kid their
lunch when they forgot their money, or their lunch ticket ran out.
You have no idea how much it means to them to have their parent/s
take care of details such as this. Sometimes they were too embarrassed
to even tell me of their problem so i kept the "borrowing" dollar in my desk that
could be taken/returned without asking.....z

Our district has "blue jean Fridays" and teachers pay for the privilege. The proceeds to buy winter coats, shoes, etc. for needy children. Our middle school has a closet for kids who need clothing (it is jam-packed).

If there is a family in need in our district (from a fire for instance), we pass around an envelope and collect food, clothing and household items for them. We recently donated several hundred dollars to each of two families whose children were killed in car crashes.

We recently held a blanket drive (just teachers) for the local emergency shelters. The collection boxes were filled with new blankets and quilts.

And we collect for new school supplies at the beginning of the year for children who come to school without any.

Add this to school-wide Support the Troops and food drives... and in many ways we are the benefactors of our community.

fills up her kids backbacks on Friday afternoons with food and snacks because she knows that most of them won't get hardly anything over the weekend. :(

I've bought groceries for a sick student I drove home (he ended up having his gallbladder taken out the week after that--not a bit of food in his cupboards and only a dollar in his wallet), and I always keep a stash of protein bars and beef jerky in my desk. The breakfasts the school serves are the same ones they serve in the elementaries, and I teach in a high school.

I've bought clothes for students, too, books, magazines, art supplies, you name it. That's just in the last two years. I don't make much, but I'm better off than many, if not most, of my students, so I give when and where I can. We all do.

to help. That is most of the teachers I know there are some who give teachers a bad name,but MOST are highly motivated. I wish I had kept track of what I spent on pencils, paper, glue, snacks, stickers, markers etc. in over 20 years of teaching. I am now a volunteer for CASA - court appointed special advocates for kids in foster care. AAnd my neighbor kids hang out in my house - I'd write more but one of them is here to get help with his homework.