DonorsChoose.org -- technology meets charity on a personal level

You may notice there's a new widget on my blog. I now have a Giving Page on DonorsChoose.org of my very own. I'm not doing this as part of a challenge (although they kind of forced me to join one, weird), I just want to try to pitch in and send some attention to teachers that I think deserve some help for their cool projects.

If you aren't familiar with how DonorsChoose.org works let me explain. Teachers post proposals with the help of the DonorsChoose.org people and you go search through them and find ones that you want to donate to. You are donating whatever amount you want to a specific teacher's project. You can sort and filter based on all sorts of things. I chose to focus on Special Needs classrooms that are serving preschool age kids. Once I had put a few of those on my page I got excited and added some more where the total needed is less than $100. That means that your $25 or $50 or $100 (or $5 if you're in a boat like mine) could complete the funding of this proposal and get the materials needed into those kids' hands. So please, take a minute and see if there is something that inspires you. Use my page as a starting off point or just go to DonorsChoose.org and search on your own.

I had heard of this website linking donors directly with teachers last year during their Bloggers Challenge. It fell out of my head until I saw an ad on YouData tonight. Go, YouData!