I put my money where my mouth is

Back in November, I wrote about DonorsChoose in my "How come I never knew about this before?" post. Some of you may have thought, "It's great that Elise is writing about this great philanthropic organization, but is she just writing about it?" Well, dear readers, I have been donating to the nonprofit ever since. I gave my own money and I had friends and family donate on my behalf during the holidays.

A while back, I got word that one of the projects I had donated a decent chunk of change to had been fully funded. Since I'm such a health nut (Regulars will know I'm all about healthy eating and exercising), I decided to give to a teacher who wanted storage containers. To some, this may sound like a stupid thing to give money to but I thought it was worthy. Here's why: the teacher had already gotten another project funded by DonorsChoose. She had requested and received gym equipment, including different types of athletic balls. She also worked in New York City. I worked in a school and I know how hard it is to keep strangers out. How sad would it have been if all of that gym equipment had been stolen? So, I forked over some cash and the teacher got her containers.

Today I received a package from DonorsChoose in the mail. There were supposed to be pictures of the kids using my gift but sadly those didn't develop properly. So what was in the package? Tons and tons of letters thanking me for the containers. There was one from the teacher saying thank you and explaining that all of the letters were written by her students, who were between 6 and 10. I've read about 15 of the letters so far and they're great!

So, what have I learned from this?

• Kids' minds work in mysterious ways.
• I will definitely give to DonorsChoose again.