NAEIR Member featured in People Magazine

The requirements for the Teacher’s Desk are that a teacher have a 70% or greater level of student participation in the National School Lunch Program.
John Mika’s idea, which resulted in the creation of the Teacher’s Desk program is of course similar to NAEIR’s. While we were already aware of Mr. Mika’s Teacher’s Desk program and of its outreach in the Buffalo, NY area since its launch in 2011, we had been considering the creation of our own national version of a program for teachers for several years before launching our “national” Teacher’s Program in August of this year. Both clearly address the considerable and increasing need that teachers throughout the country have for classroom supplies.
Teachers spend over $350 a year on average, out of their own pockets, purchasing classroom materials that principals and department heads are finding it more and more difficult to provide funds for. Nationally the total out-of-pocket expense, apart from school budgets or PTO and PTA contributions comes to approximately $1.3 billion annually.
John Mika, Director for the organization was recently heralded in People Magazine’s regular feature – “Heroes Among Us” for his work on behalf of teachers as well as the children of Buffalo, NY and its environs – http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20627217,00.html (link no longer available) .
NAEIR appears to figure prominently among those sources that Teacher’s Desk looks to for donated product. Western New York Shares Kingdom Bound Ministries has received over $86,000 worth of material through it’s membership in NAEIR since March of this year. We suspect that some of that may have been applied toward the Teacher’s Desk program.
As noted earlier in this blog, NAEIR’s own Teacher’s Program, launched just this past month, is national in scope and all of the classroom supplies that teachers in the program order are shipped to them wherever they may be across the United States.
For more information about NAEIR’s Teacher’s Program go to http://www.naeir.org/teachers/teachers-program-overview/. You may also contact Dawn R. Parton, Member Enrollment Representative at (800)-562-0955, ext. 228 or send her an email at drp@naeir.org.