DonorsChoose: Help Bay Area Classrooms in Need

Dear altruistic, amazing readers and friends:

It is your continuously generous support, fundraising, and activism that inspired me to participate in the BlogHer DonorsChoose campaign -- which kicked off today, and will be running for the month of October. To quote the inimitable Denise Tanton:

DonorsChoose is an online charity that makes it easy for everyone to help fund educational projects around the country. During the Social Media Challenge bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers, (and BlogHers) will come together to raise money that goes straight to the place it's needed the most - the classroom. Last year, bloggers raised more than $275,000 and helped fund projects in 65,000 public schools.

I helped select Bay Area classroom projects supporting students with special needs or affected by poverty (unfortunately, it's not too hard to find dual-purpose classrooms in our area). I hope you find them compelling enough to help out, because there are so many options for supporting this challenge:

• Donate directly to the Bay Area project of your choice (even $1 helps)
  
• Visit BlogHer to find projects near your own area
  
• Install the BlogHer Social Media Challenge: Bay Area widget on your own blog (widget link on right side of page; contact DonorsChoose if you need widget support)
• Tweet about the BlogHer Bay Area DonorsChoose projects using a tidy short URL like http://tr.im/ApGB.
• Follow @donorschoose on Twitter
• Friend DonorsChoose on Facebook.
  

I am a particular fan of the Classroom Rug project, which describes the many ways in which a Word Map rug would enrich a local kindergarten classroom's learning experience. I am a geographer, I have a kindergartener, and I happen to know that the school in question has an established program for including a special ed child in every single classroom.

All the DonorChoose projects are worthy of your attention. Please help us fund as many programs as we can, by the end of October, even if it's just by spreading the word.