Free 2 Teach

📚 14,271!! In the first two months of the school year, your support has helped us give away 14,271 books! We thought we’d tell a little story of our own about how that is possible… ✨

🏰 Once upon a time, a group of people came together with a belief: teachers should have all the tools they need (for free!) to create joyful classrooms where children can learn, grow, and explore. And everyone in the kingdom brought their treasure. 📚 Some brought books and supplies. 💰 Some brought gold to keep the great storehouse open. 🚚 Some brought trucks and strong arms. 📣 Some told the story far and wide.

⚔️ Then came a great and mighty volunteer army, sorting mountains of treasure, stocking shelves, and building a great library. The treasure grew, the joy grew, and soon teachers from neighboring kingdoms came too, filling their carts and carrying it all back to children across the land. 🛒📖✨

👑 Thank you for making sure this story isn’t just a fairy tale - that for our teachers and their students, it’s real!! 📚❤️✨

Every little bit of treasure adds up, and together, it becomes something mighty. 👑✨ Want to join our mighty band of heroes? Share your treasure 💰 (www.free2teach.org/donate) or your time ⏰ (https://free2teach.org/volunteer/individuals/) to help us keep writing this very special story. Thank you! ✨

We loved last week, and we wanted to share more photos from a powerful moment made possible by our partners, friends, and significant grant funding from Senator Arthur Orr. We are thrilled to continue deepening our impact across Madison and Limestone counties while building new friendships as we expand our services into Morgan County. ✏️📚

For teachers in Morgan County, we have three welcome events happening this month! Let us know which one you can attend through SignUpGenius, which is linked below. We look forward to connecting with you, welcoming you to Free 2 Teach, and helping you learn how to register to shop at our free store. 🖍️📓

Thank you to everyone who helps us continue to serve teachers and support our public schools! 🍎❤️

Morgan County teachers can sign-up for a welcome event here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0D4CA9AC2FA3F8CF8-65375804-welcome #/

We were thrilled to be part of the Shelby Supply Run at Vine & Oak in Madison on August 22! 🥂✨

With the support of Vine & Oak’s proprietors, Amelia Adams brought the evening to life with a fun, themed speakeasy night benefiting Free 2 Teach. We’re incredibly grateful to Amelia, the Vine & Oak team, and everyone who joined us and helped make the evening such a success.

Thank you for helping us put more school supplies into the hands of local students and teachers! 📚❤️

We are so thankful for the annual and significant support of Representative Rex Reynolds who stopped by this morning with a very generous gift of $10,000 to support our work.

Representative Reynolds’ investment in Free 2 Teach each year helps us reach more children through our model of bringing the community together to equip and empower educators!!

We are so grateful for his friendship, partnership and commitment to our schools! ✏️📋📓🍎📎📁🖌️🎒 ✏️📋📓🍎📎📁🖌️🎒

An amazing first two months of the 26-27 school year:

🛒 1,787 shops
✏️ $658,928.75 in supplies distributed to help teachers get rooms and lessons ready for kids across 113 public schools.

Check out your impact by school district!!

📍Athens City Schools: $32,208.25
📍Huntsville City Schools: $253.908.50
📍Limestone County Schools: $68,992.00
📍Madison City Schools: $88,319
📍Madison County Schools: $214,905.50

. and we are just getting started!

Educators shop every month with us, and our monthly supporters help make that possible. If you love what we do, consider a monthly gift as part of The Crayon Club. It adds up to big impact! 🖍️ www.free2teach.org/donate 🖍️

On Tuesday, September 1st, our partners at the Rocket City Trash Pandas are hosting Teacher Appreciation Night at Toyota Field! ⚾️ 🖍️ If you’re a teacher, you can follow the link below to get Trash Pandas tickets for 30% off, and be entered into a drawing to win $2,500 for your classroom needs if you bring your teacher ID. You can also get 10% off at the Junkyard Team Store. We’ll see you there! ✏️

https://www.xnow.com/landing-page/rocketcitytrashpandas/teacherdiscount

We are so excited to share that today, with the support of Senator Arthur Orr, we announced the expansion of Free 2 Teach to include Morgan County’s three public school systems: Decatur City Schools, Hartselle City Schools, and Morgan County Schools!

Just 18 months ago, we expanded to Limestone County and have already invested more than half a million dollars in resources for their teachers and students, while continuing to deepen our impact in Madison County, where we gave away nearly $2 million in resources last year alone.

It is a powerful moment for our organization and community to now, together and with the support of Senator Orr, expand this work into an incredible new community.

We have loved building relationships with the superintendents, school foundations and leaders across Morgan County, learning more about their schools and working together to support the great things already happening for teachers and students throughout their communities.

With this expansion, Free 2 Teach will now impact 158 public schools across three counties, open to more than 6,000 public school teachers and staff who serve over 97,000 students.

This growth is possible because of the foundation that you, our amazing community, have helped build. From the brilliant vision Eula and her team first cast, to the teachers and school staff, team, volunteers, board, donors, public leaders and community partners who have strengthened Free 2 Teach year after year, we are strong and ready to grow and serve in this next chapter of our story.

Help us say a big WELCOME to Morgan County from the Free 2 Teach family! ❤️📚

Morgan County teachers: head to www.free2teach.org to sign up for a welcome event in September, and get more information about starting your shopping journey with us this fall.

Join us this Saturday night from 6-9pm at The Vine and Oak for a speakeasy night benefitting Free 2 Teach! The $25 ticket includes charcuterie, a glass of champagne, and a night of fun with a costume contest and a raffle!

Dress in your Peaky Blinders inspired outfit and enjoy a night of fun benefitting public school teachers in North Alabama! 🎩 ✏️ Tickets are available at the link below.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shelby-supply-run-tickets-1995974498455

Mr Porter teaches physical and forensic science at James Clemens High School. 🔬

“Free 2 Teach helps supply materials for my class and my students - this is great!”

Grace Hill, a senior at James Clemons High School, is volunteering with us this afternoon:

“My mom is a teacher at the new elementary school in Madison, and I see the impact this has on her and I wanted to give back and help more teachers like her.”

Thank you, Grace. 🥹

We ❤️ our volunteers and we would love for you to consider helping too. Right now, our greatest volunteer needs are:

🗂️ Supply organizers during the morning
🛒 Volunteers to help check teachers out during our Tuesday and Thursday afternoon shops.

Go to https://free2teach.org/volunteer/individuals/ to make an account and sign up for a spot! Thanks!