Help 50 Title 1 Classrooms Meet Wildlife Up-Close!

Hi Friends!

First, thank you so much for your donation(s) to Help 50 Title 1 Classrooms Meet Wildlife Up-Close. We are eternally grateful to each and every one of our donors. You make our work possible!

We are anxiously awaiting our chance to jump into a Title 1 school in Wake, Orange or Durham County with our animals. Getting a new project off the ground can be a slow start, but we remain vigilant with our efforts to find donors. Each program we take to Title 1 schools costs about $250 on average. Through this program, these programs will be FREE for teachers and schools.

You may be wondering what we do during our programs! For an hour, students get the opportunity to meet live North Carolina wildlife up-close from the comforts of their classroom. They learn all kinds of fun facts as well as the natural history of each animal including diet, habitat, predator/prey interactions and adaptations. With small classroom sizes of ~30 students or less, the students get the chance to touch some of our animals. This up-close, personal interaction with wild animals is always a unique experience and helps to spark curiosity and a yearning to learn more. The best part about our visits is that the teachers and schools don't need to worry about transportation or permission slips. We roll our animals in to the classroom in a large red cart and the experience can begin right after lunch, math or even as soon as the students step off the bus in the morning.

We actively email local area teachers year-round to get the word out about our programs, but these efforts are ramped up in August and January. Hours upon hours are spent emailing teachers to let them know of this awesome resource in their backyards. Once we hear back from an interested teacher, we are able to coordinate programs and pricing, based on each individual teacher's needs. Once we have enough money in our project fund, we will be launching a Title 1 school program request form on our website. This will enable interested Title 1 school teachers to sign up for a scholarship for us to visit their classrooms.

We're so excited to visit classrooms soon! Prior to COVID, we had the chance to visit Central Elementary in Orange County at least twice. During these visits, the students' eyes lit up everytime we brought out a new animal. Many of the students commented that they had never seen these animals in real life and especially not in their classroom. The teacher emailed afterwards letting us know that we were the talk of her students and they couldn't believe those animals came right into their classroom to see them!

Please share our project with any friends you may know who might be interested in donating. We look forward to sharing our adventures around the Triangle with you soon!

Best,

The PWC Conservation Team