Every year, on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving, the world unites for a global movement of good: Giving Tuesday. This year, it falls on December 3rd.

Beyond a single day, Giving Tuesday sparks a season of giving, inspiring individuals and communities to make a lasting impact. By donating to nonprofits, volunteering time, or simply spreading kindness, you can help address critical global challenges.

Here at the Special Education Foundation, we encourage you to join this movement and let your generosity shine. Your support can fund vital projects, meet essential services, and empower students to succeed in and beyond the classroom. Together, we can create a brighter future.

This year, SEF is focusing your donations for Giving Tuesday on one of our most impactful programs: Classroom Innovation Grants.

Why is SEF’s Classroom Innovation Grant program so important?

It's because it directly impacts the lives of our special education students, providing them with the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Let’s start with the basics.

Imagine you’re an educator working with special education students and have an idea to try something new or different to help your students. Here's an example:

Ms. Carmichael teaches middle school students at a public school in St. Louis County.

Ms. Carmichael’s classroom is a caring and loving atmosphere where students of all ages come to learn at differentiated levels. This dedicated teacher is working to create a calming atmosphere through a project called The Calm Project.

This project is designed to nurture all students' social-emotional health and needs. Ms. Carmichael has a list of items she would like to purchase to support the needs of students within her class.

To achieve The Calm Project, she would like to provide various seating options to meet student needs. This includes ball chairs, exercise balls, and chair bands. This will allow students to choose what seating helps them learn best.

In addition, she also wants to transform the light in her classroom with subdued lighting and covers for the fluorescent lights. This will help create an atmosphere that meets the needs of various learners. This will serve as daily support but also be beneficial in crisis situations.

Lastly, she would like to add a variety of fidgets and sensory items to our room to increase engagement with desired tasks. This will also serve as an outlet for students to balance their emotional needs when their behavior might be escalating.

Overall, these additions to her classroom will immensely support the mental health of Ms. Carmichael’s students.

She wants all of her students to have a safe place to come to meet their needs and regulate their social and emotional needs. And she believes The Calm Project will accomplish this for her class.

If Ms. Carmichael were independently wealthy, she would purchase the items needed for her classroom. But she’s a 3rd-year teacher with student loans and has already spent about $450 on things like paper, pencils, markers, and glue to class subscriptions for online learning programs, lab equipment, snacks for hungry kids, tissues, and cleaning supplies for her class.

It is common for teachers to spend their own money on their classroom. Multiple surveys, including one by the U.S. Department of Education, show that 94% of teachers reach into their own pockets to purchase classroom necessities.

But luckily, Ms. Carmichael discovered that the Special Education Foundation provides grants for educators like her.

So, to help make her dream of The Calm Project a reality, Ms. Carmichael applied for a Classroom Innovation Grant from SEF to cover the $625 cost to purchase items for her classroom.

This school year, the Special Education Foundation is funding around 90 projects totaling more than $65,000 to SSD educators across St. Louis County. These projects, like The Calm Project, have made a significant difference in the lives of our special education students.

For SEF to continue to fund these projects, we rely on support from individuals, businesses, and foundations.

However, based on our current funding levels, we have significantly more requests than we can fund. That’s why we are devoting our Giving Tuesday fundraising to support our Classroom Innovation Grant program.

As an added incentive, we are looking to match a $10,000 grant from the I Have a Dream Foundation - St. Louis to support this program that reaches thousands of SSD students across St. Louis County.

Can you help?

You can make an early Giving Tuesday donation today by donating online using this link.

With your support, we can help more teachers develop innovative projects to help their students.