Free 2 Teach

Well that’s a wrap!! Abby Benson is our last teacher of the school year, bringing us to 5,141 carts filled during 25-26!!! 🛒🎉

This is what your time, energy, and joy accomplished for children and their teachers across 113 public schools, *this* school year:

💚 $2,130,755.75 in supplies given away
📚 40,820 books
✏️ 109,210 pencils (!!)
🍎 and so much more!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you thank you! What a joy to empower teachers in their work to build joyful classrooms, strong lessons, and excellence for kids.

Our partners from FirstBank volunteered with us this week in celebration of internal audit awareness month! 🥳🧮🔢🎉

Johnathan Watson, Jordan Walters and Kenneth Johnson from the Nashville headquarters joined Brandy Brannon Smith, Angel Stinson, Amy Hovis and Tawana Williamson from the Huntsville branch to build STEM kits for our Free 2 Explore program.

“We love to give back to our communities and partner together with associates from across the region to make a local impact. It was so energizing to be here today, team building while also doing something good for the community."

With over 1,600 team members across 96 branches in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina, FirstBank has a vision to build trust, serve communities, and lead with kindness.

Thank you for your energy and kindness supporting Free 2 Teach, ensuring all of our future bankers (auditors!) have the tools they need to learn and thrive.

🚀MATCH MET!!!🚀 Thanks to the generosity of our friends and partners over the course of our Teacher Appreciation Match Challenge presented by the EZBO Foundation, every dollar was matched up to $15,000 and with all of your gifts and additional donations, we raised a total of.... $37,945! 🎉

We are so thankful to Michael and Elaine Gutenstein who matched every dollar up to $15,000 and to our amazing community who gave generously to help us finish the year strong and make a difference for the teachers we serve. ✏️

Retiring from the classroom, or know a teacher that is? 🍎📚✏️

You can give your extra school supplies a second life by donating them to Free 2 Teach! From crayons and notebooks to classroom décor and more, your gently used items can make a huge difference for local teachers and students. ❤️

We are open for donations:
🕗 Monday–Thursday: 8 AM – 3 PM
🕐 Friday: 8 AM – 1 PM

Thank you for helping us stock our free teacher supply store and support classrooms across North Alabama! 🍎✨

5,000 shops THIS school year!!! ✨🛒🥳

Last night, we crossed the milestone of 5,000 shops in a single school year for the first time ever! (Last year, we had 4,465 total shops!). This is only possible because of the incredible support of our community.

❤️🍎

Julia Godfrey and Kristen Harris volunteered with us on Saturday at our Meta Checkout Center.

“Everybody is so friendly. The whole system is really well organized. It’s easy to just come in and volunteer. The learning curve was practically none. We loved it!”

This week our shops are full - we will serve 150 teachers! We can only do this because of the help of so many who give their time to serve teachers with us at our warehouse. To get involved go to: https://free2teach.org/volunteer/individuals/

Thank you MCES for your time and leadership!! We love working with you to equip teachers!!

We are so thankful for the support of the Light the World Giving Machine! Over part of November and December, Giving Machines empowered the generosity of our community, facilitating the donation of $11,115 to Free 2 Teach!

Thank you to all of our volunteers, board members, and friends who supported the Giving Machine when it was at Bridge Street Town Centre Huntsville. We are so grateful to Peggy Nelson and her team at Giving Machine Alabama! ✨✨✨

We are so grateful for the Notre Dame Club of North Alabama! They volunteered on Saturday and worked hard assembling Free 2 Explore kits. Thanks to groups like them, Free 2 Teach has been able to give away $53,446 worth of Free 2 Explore items this school year! 🔬 🧪

$2 Million!!!! 🛒💥🛒

Tonya Barnett from Madison Cross Roads Elementary School is our $2 million dollar shopper!!! Her cart put us over this incredible, record milestone: it is the first time that we have given away over $2M in supplies in one school year (and we still have 6 more shops to go!).

This year, we have grown over 20% in teacher shoppers, and our team, volunteers and partners have supported every shop - all 4,826 of them! - with joy and kindness. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible. ✏️🚀

If you want to get involved in helping fill carts, your support will be DOUBLED all month thanks to the EZBO Foundation's Teacher Appreciation Match Challenge. Every dollar up to $15,000 will be doubled until May 15th: www.free2teach.org/donate THANK YOU!!!

Thanks to everyone who has made this a milestone year!