“What’s going on?” asked Diana Collins, a second-grade teacher at Jury Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District, when a group of people walked through her classroom door in the middle of the morning carrying flowers and a framed certificate.
Collins is the winner of an “A Day Made Better” award, a national cause event founded by OfficeMax to benefit its nonprofit partner, Adopt-A-Classroom. Annually in October, 30,000 OfficeMax associates surprise and honor more than 1,000 teachers at Title 1 schools around the country with a total of $1,000,000 worth of classroom supplies - $1,000 per classroom. The program began in October 2007.
Mary Shaw, principal of Jury, explained why she nominated Collins for “A Day Made Better.”
“Diana is a creative, enthusiastic and generous teacher, completely committed to the team concept within her classroom, within our building and with the parents and community. She was voted Teacher of the Year by her peers, and she continues to search for new ideas and affordable materials to share with the staff,” said Shaw.
Collins was stunned by the honor.
“I am so thankful to God for this wonderful blessing. He blesses me in the most unexpected ways, through so many good people. I’m excited and I’m speechless,” Collins said.
The classroom gift from OfficeMax included a digital camera, a swivel chair, a bulletin board, a box of copier paper and a huge orange and white box filled with binders, planners, pencils, pens, an electric stapler, a label maker and much more. The supplies were provided by the OfficeMax location in Florissant. Store manager Kim Fasnacht and associates James Huster and Keleisha Taylor presented the gifts.
“I plan to use a lot of the materials in my own classroom – especially the binders for Writer’s Workshop, and the markers for the overheads for teaching math. I now have an ample supply of almost everything I need, and enough to share with my team in the building. We share ideas, we share materials, and every student is important to each of us,” Collins continued.
After the visit, Collins talked to her students about what took place.
“Even though I explained that we all won these materials from OfficeMax and that I was nominated because I was lucky enough to be voted Teacher of the Year by the other teachers in the building, they still seemed a bit overwhelmed by the attention,” she said.
“Several students were sad that other classrooms are not getting the same thing, so I assured them we would share.”
Shaw shared her thoughts on the impact the gift will have on the school.
“Our students benefit from the actual materials, of course, but they also learn from the generosity of OfficeMax and the “A Day Made Better” program. Even though our students already understand that our school staff cares about their education, now they can see that complete strangers in our community are going out of their way to help.
“Cooperation, collaboration, giving and sharing – these are lessons that go hand-in-hand with academic education. This program has helped us reinforce our school motto – ‘Together we’re building our future,’” Shaw said.