You need stuff!

If you are reading this, and working in a school library/media center, you need stuff.

It doesn’t matter how much money your school has – you need more stuff for your library. And a lot of our members are in schools where there is not a bunch of extra money floating around; even when it is plentiful, it doesn’t always float toward the library.

Fortunately, there are other resources for you to use in making things wonderful!

Donors Choose is a great website that I’ve been following, and donating to, since 2007. So I can say that as a fan and a user: it’s been great!!

What is so lovely about this site?

It’s for schools, and it allows teachers and library people to tell their community – and everyone – what they need. They find something they could use to make their work with students better, do a little research into pricing, and write it up. The Donors Choose people help, and get it all up on their website.

Then people from all over the place will search the website to find projects they want to sponsor. They can search for key words that are interesting to them: books, library, technology – whatever. Or they can search for project that are in their own community. Or they can search for projects with highest economic need, those closest to the finish line, those with fewest days left.

You, as a teacher and library person, can absolutely create one of these!! It’s such a handy way to (potentially) get a project funded, and a great PR tool to show off the things you can do in your library to serve the school community.

Have you done one? Great! Do another one! (You still need stuff, after all!!)

Never done one? Never written a grant? It all sounds terrifying?? No worries – CMLE staff are here to help you!! Members can drop us an email to admin @ cmle.org, and we will bustle right over to help you. (How do you know you are a member? Are you in one of our twelve counties? Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd, or Wright. Yes? Then, you are a member!)

 

Try one!! Let’s get so many great things for your library!!!