Thread by @AC_NoChill

Who'd like to end their week on a good feeling & help a group of predominantly #Native kids (mostly #Cherokee) in NE Oklahoma?😄 We all know Oklahoma schools are way underfunded, so field trips are few & far between. My mom teaches 7th/8th grade language arts at a rural school...

in Delaware County. She loves to read & introduce her students to classic authors, short stories & experiences they wouldn’t normally get in a small, rural school 60+ miles from Tulsa. Over the summer she found a theater company that caters to school field trips stopping in Tulsa

Chamber Theater Productions tours the country and performs classics like The Monkey’s Paw, The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Necklace, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, etc. Here’s a link: chambertheatre.com/encore Most of these kids have likely never been to a live play. 🎭

She worked with the theater group & let them know the school didn’t have a budget for this, and they were SUPER gracious, lowering their ticket price to $12.95 per student! So hats off to the theater group for being so wonderful to work with! 🎩👏

The school is asking each kid to pay $5 apiece & bring a sack lunch, which they’ll eat at a park. (the play is at the ORU Mabee Center, FYI). That means they are trying to find $7.95 per ticket x about 100 kids, so they need about $800 to cover ticket prices.

She’s been trying to figure out how to pay for this since probably July or August. The teachers/administrators have kicked around pitching in to pay for it, but I’m tired of teachers paying out of pocket for things our state will not provide. And FYI, no one asked me to do this.

But as the date of the show is creeping up (Oct. 11), I asked recently “so how is fundraising for your field trip going?” and she said they were probably going to pitch in and do it themselves. I said, “well... let me see if I can get some ppl to pitch in before y’all do that.”

To provide context, Delaware County is 25% Native American. Total household income (so men, women + children) is $44K. The poverty rate is nearly 20%. Kids these days don’t get field trips like we did & rural kids especially don’t get exposure to these kinds of experiences.

So if anyone would be so generous to contribute to this experience, you can mail/cut a check to:
Kansas Schools
700 North Woods Ave
Kansas, Oklahoma 74347
memo line: 7/8 grade language arts field trip
Ph: 918-868-2562 (if you are like me and cutting a check from your bank)

Again, the Kansas, Okla. 7th/8th grade field trip to see this wonderful set of classic short stories is Oct. 11 in Tulsa, and they need about $800 to cover the remaining student ticket price. Students are paying $5 of their own money. Wado!!! #TGIF #OklaED chambertheatre.com/encore

@threadreaderapp unroll please!