MIDLAND, Texas — May 4 is Teacher's Appreciation Day, a day that is dedicated to recognizing educators all over the United States.
Mrs. Jennifer Powell is a third grade teacher at Greathouse Elementary School in Midland.
Everyday students walk in class and sit down to learn and take part in one of their favorite activities, reading.
"I'm a reading teacher so my kids love reading books. We want to have reading centers that are more enriching for them that they want to do on their own independently," says Powell.
Mrs. Powell started a donor page on the website Donorchoose.org. A site where teachers can sign up to receive funding for classroom materials.
"It's an institution that lets teachers put in what they want for the classroom, what they need. A lot of the times we buy our own things so if we appl0y everything's out there then there's other companies that will put in money and buy it for the classroom," says Powell.
As for what she requested on the site, "I asked for some cool writing project journaling notebooks that they can do and I did some intervention reading books for them so we can work on their reading fluency."
She calls her class the 'Rocking Readers,' and they were recently surprised with some good news from their teacher.
"This is what every teacher would love to see, is that your project has been funded fully . We're the rocking readers and we set our goal at $572," says Powell.
The class was able to reach their goal and will receive all that is listed on the classes page.
"Teachers in the building and they have a classroom that has been funded so they run down and say 'I saw your project got funded' so it's like Christmas for a teacher," says Powell.
An early Christmas present that makes a difference for teachers and students.
Mrs. Powell does like being a teacher and says, "I really couldn't imagine life without having 100 kids around me all day long, screaming and wanting to know more about everything in the world and everything out there so it was just an easy career to fall into to help our little ones grow and help them be what they want to be."