Testimonials

If it wasn’t for the Adopt a Classroom many students would not have gotten the resources to increase their engagement and achievement. My students made huge gains in their learning and I feel that adopt a classroom contributed to their success. With the Adopt a Classroom, students were more engaged with new and meaningful stations in both math and reading that I would not have bought with my personal money. Thank you!

I am so grateful for this LEAF program and would gladly sing your praises 🙂
Thank you again for the grant 🙂

This grant allowed me to purchase a classroom set of novels – a new novel that kids didn’t know. Having a new book to read inspired students, and they felt valued that someone was willing to provide money for us to do this. I know that it shouldn’t make a difference that the books were new – but it did. They were more positive as we approached the reading.

I have been the lucky recipient of a Leaf Grant for a couple years. It is a wonderful gift that keeps on giving. I benefit and so do all my students. Sometimes I have used it to support curriculum and other times it is a great resource as many students in our district show up with few if any supplies. Along with the money I spend from my own, I am able to do a bit extra thanks to these generous supporters. Rewarding students for achievement is another fun way I have used the my Leaf Grant,they all love Jolly Ranchers.

I have LOVED the Adopt a Classroom Program. I spend hundreds of dollars a year on my students, and I feel appreciated and acknowledged by having the flexibility of purchasing what I need for my classroom. I feel trusted and validated as a professional! The process is easy, just filling out a form of our needs. THANK YOU!

This year I used the Adopt A Classroom Grand to purchase trumpet and trombone mutes. These are extra accessories which are used in many concert band and jazz ensemble pieces. Although I ask students to purchase their own mutes many use school instruments or are unable to afford them. Thank you for the opportunity to provide these tools to better meet the performance needs of my students!

Most of my students come to school without school supplies and I typically pay hundreds of dollars out of my own pocket to supply the basics to my students such as calculators, pencils, folders and notebooks to students who otherwise sit in class without these materials and use this as a reason to not participate/complete their school work. Thanks to the leaf grant, three E/BD classrooms were supplied with school supplies for our students that come without materials. This demonstrates to the students someone cares about them enough to supply what they need in order for them to come and learn. The teachers and students are very thankful to what this grant supplied us with!

The Adopt a Classroom grant that I received for my classroom this past fall was fantastic! We used the $250.00 to purchase books and relevant maps/puzzles for our classroom. The lending library that has been created, is a great addition to my Social Studies/Career Exploration classroom! THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for this program. We stretched the money in many ways to get the most books and supplies to assist this new project. Have a great day and keep up the great work and program!

I think this is a wonderful program to help teachers. I was able to use the money to buy the things that really help myself as well as my kiddos. I really appreciate this program. Big think you!

My class helped me in the process of picking out the supplies we needed and wanted. When they arrived in the huge box my class said it was like opening up a birthday present! They took such great care of the items and felt ownership in the whole process!!

I cannot thank the LEAF Adopt a Classroom Project enough for the support you gave our music classroom this year at Clearview. I have not had a Music budget for several years now so the $250 purchased mallets, snare drum brushes, triangle holders, a book about B.B. King on Blues and folk dance music with instruction booklet that all students are enjoying. Thank you for helping us get these items that help our students have a “hands on ” approach to music making. They are so appreciative and eager to sing, play and create.

This is my second year of receiving a Leaf Adopt a Classroom grant. What a wonderful program! Last year I was able to purchase a large number of books for my classroom library. I teach at Discovery where we have a very diverse population. I need to have high interest books at all levels of reading to meet the needs of my English Language Learners as well as my high achieving students. This year I was able to purchase a better system to store the books in my room so that students can check out and return the books with ease. I know that the Leaf Grant has helped increase outside of school reading for my students as I allow them to take books home. Thank you so much!

Thank you to everyone for collaborating with LEAF, and supporting education. With this grant I bought
Spanish books for my classroom and binders for each of my students. It has been so great to have more books available to the students in Spanish. We have really enjoyed them. I have used the binders all year long and they have been very helpful. THANK YOU!

My Career and Technical Education Program was the grateful recipient of a $250 grant for school supplies through the LEAF Adopt a Classroom Project. Supplies purchases included highlighters, markers, labels, calculators, and other much needed supplies. The amount of money provided will help keep my program stocked with supplies for the next several years. School budgets have been downsized and basic needs for running a classroom seem to have been hit the hardest. My students and I appreciate the support that we received from our business sponsor and would really encourage other businesses to become a part of the LEAF process to help other classrooms provide these needed supplies. Thank you for believing in the educational process of helping our young adults achieve success through programs like LEAF! The LEAF grant money was great. I was able to purchase puzzles, reading and math manipulatives, and games for our kindergarten classroom. One of the items we were able to purchase was magna-tiles. They are building type blocks that can be used to build 3D shapes. These blocks allow math, science and creativity to be used together. The students love them. They are used often in our class. The students were so excited to get the new things for our classroom.

With my LEAF Adopt a Classroom Grant, I was able to purchase a Algebra 1 Versatiles set. It allows my students to do math in a hands on manner. The students enjoy doing something different every once in a while and the VersaTiles set works well for this. Some student even ask when we are doing the tiles again.

I am a licensed school nurse for District 742. My assignment includes Talahi and Oak Hill Elementary Schools. The Adopt a Classroom Project money was used to purchase items for Talahi. (The Oak Hill PTA typically donates money to the Health Office and other donations at Oak Hill allowed me to use the monies at Talahi.) This money was used to purchase elastic waist sweat pants in various sizes and muted “unisex” colors and assorted sizes of male and female underwear. This allowed the Health Office staff to offer kids a quick change of clothing when a situation occurred that required a change of clothing. (Less time digging through boxes looking for something appropriate.) Less time was lost from the classroom, and the Health Office staff could attend to others in more “urgent” need of care. The sweat pants “blend in” and it was less obvious the kids had on clothes form school. Self esteem preserved. Parents were able to remain at work. Kids could remain at school. We ask for the clothing be washed and returned to school. (That does happen on occasion.) This simple purchase was a huge help to us in the Talahi Health Office! Thanks for asking and thanks for all you do for the kids in St. Cloud schools.

The money donated to the South Office Staff greatly benefited our students in myriad ways. The money enabled us to reach all students on a macro level and many on the micro. We provided trapper keepers, school supplies, socks, mittens and hats for students who came to school unprepared for the weather and without family resources to attain them. Additionally, we provided materials to the counselors for providing social skills training to all sixth graders through the classroom. Thank you so much for providing us with this funding.

I was very thankful to get my grant this year. I was able to buy sets of 3 different novels for my students. It was great to be able to have new books, and I know the kids appreciated it too. It was really nice to supplement the small budget I had available. The program is very beneficial and I really appreciated receiving the grant! Thanks for your help with this!

I have been greatly blessed by the LEAF organization in the past two years. I applied for and received a classroom materials grant that helped me purchase 3 IPads for my classroom. These have proven to be valuable assets in my instruction. Students have used them for practice and review of reading and math skills and also for creating stories that fulfill a media literacy first grade standard. Students are highly motivated to use the IPads and highly engaged with the tasks on them. Secondly, I was fortunate to receive a $250 classroom grant this year. I purchased a web-based reading program with leveled digital books that were read daily in my instructional guided reading groups. The program included comprehension activities that related well to the format of standardized testing. My students’ reading and math scores were very good this year, showing strong increases and levels meeting or exceeding national norms. Having these instructional tools made a great difference!! School monies are designated for specific uses, so access to purchase instructional materials for our classrooms is virtually non-existent. Without the financial support of LEAF, these purchases would not have happened for me nor impacted my students. Thanks so much for your hard work and commitment to creating these opportunities for District 742 students!! Forever thankful.

The $250 grant I received was used to purchase an ipad for use in our classroom. With the many free apps I was able to obtain, I was able to provide extensions and remediations for MANY students. Many of the apps I downloaded were games which went right along with our classroom learning and which could be used in a station activity for 4 children at a time. The ipad was never sitting idle and will be used again next year for many more students! Thank you!

THANK YOU LEAF!! I am fortunate to have received a Chromebook this year for my classroom due to LEAF! That gift has been extremely valuable to the learning in my classroom. Students use it daily to research our Social Studies topics allowing for inquiry driven learning. The additional technology has increased engagement and the critical thinking and problem solving skills necessary for success in today’s world. As a teacher, I have been able to provide more learning options and better support individualized instruction as well. Tools such as these are vital to the success of all learners in our classrooms. I am extremely grateful for the support that LEAF has provided for my classroom and all of its learners! THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN!

To Whom It May Concern, In the fall of 2013, my kindergarten class received a $250.00 Grant. I used the grant to purchase multiple copies of books for our listen to read center. These books have benefitted students by providing them with vocabulary rich reading materials, being read by fluent and expressive readers. They have been able to listen to the stories multiple times increasing their vocabulary and comprehension skills. Because they LOVED the stories, they have taken excellent care of the books and the books will be available to future students. The books in the listening center have also benefitted the students by allowing them to be independent, freeing up me to provide guided reading and intervention to small groups and individual students. Thanks to the LEAF grant, we have had a very successful year. Students have had accelerated growth on MAP assessments. Non-readers have become readers! Sincerely.

I was lucky enough to receive a LEAF grant this year for my classroom, and it really made a difference! One of the things I purchased was some motivational and math posters to hang in my room. Since I was new to Tech this year, these helped define the space as a math room. My favorite poster is one that says, “Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, it means you should try HARDER.” I point to it all the time and remind students to keep trying. I also bought a carton of tissues to use in the room. It seems so minor, but being able to have a box out for the students, especially during this almost-endless winter, was so helpful. It would have cost a lot of my personal money to keep tissue in my room. Finally, I bought some scientific calculators. I have many lower-income students in my classes, and there are several that do not have a good calculator. It has helped a lot for them to be able to borrow one of the classroom set to use in class. I really appreciate the LEAF grant!

Hi Bruce & LEAF team, I was pleasantly surprised to receive on of the LEAF grants this year. The money helped me purchase countless books for my classroom! Many students enjoyed copies of Divergent, Matched, Maze Runner, Harry Potter and City of Ember to name just a few. I look forward to using them for years to come. I also used a small amount of the grant to help support the many items I found I needed as the school year went on. Thank you!

The LEAF grant helped us to purchase materials for more hands on projects than our school budget would allow. One of the projects was designing t-shirts to encourage others to be drug free. The t-shirts said “My Natural High Is…” and on the back they designed their own picture showing what their natural high is.

My LEAF grant went for a Chromebook for student use. The Chromebook was used every day by many students. Students worked math activities, researched topics, and keyboarded writing projects. When our class was gone for a day the Chromebook was borrowed to another classroom for use. Students were motivated to work on the Chromebook and this increased their level of achievement.

The LEAF Adopt a Classroom Project was great this year. It allowed me to purchase supplies for my student that usually come out of my pocket or are not available at all. Because of this funding I was able to ensure all my students had basic supplies even at the end of the year. Thank you!!!!