A recent study by the Maryland State Education Association found 94 percent of Maryland teachers spend their own money on school supplies. While education advocates, including many OSI grantees, work to ensure that schools receive adequate funding so that teachers don’t have to provide their own supplies, 2016 OSI Community Fellow Melissa Badeker is helping teachers get supplies for free.
As WBAL and WJZ reported this week, the organization Badeker founded during her OSI Fellowship, Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap, collects unused supplies from businesses, schools, and teachers, and gives them away to teachers who need them – the organization gave away $300,000 of supplies last year.