Announcing the 2020 Teaming Up With Teachers Winners

As we all face these uncertain times together, celebrating the heroes in our communities is essential! Over the last few years, we have hosted #TeamingUpWithTeachers to award four deserving teachers $500 for their classroom. Usually, we ask teachers to share their classrooms and what they would use their money for, but we thought we could do something a little different.

We decided to help share some motivation, so this year, teachers submitted messages for their students or fellow educators. With the current situation, our teachers have had to quickly adapt to new learning techniques while still finding ways to inspire their students.  Each photo was shared on our social media profiles so that the messages were spread to students and teachers in all our communities.

After a week of filling our social media channels with positive messages, we randomly chose 4 winners to receive the $500 gift cards. We know this year has been hard, and we are so happy to continue our tradition of supporting our local teachers!

Meet the Winners!

Angie Ginder

6^th grade at Rock Creek Elementary School

“I have the most amazing class of 6th graders. I am so thankful to be back in the classroom with them. I would love to spend the $500 on items to make learning fun and engaging including outdoor seating options like yoga mats and camping chairs as well as additional hands-on materials for each student.”

Keith Parrish

Kindergarten-6^th grades at IPS 54 Brookside

“I am the school therapist and I see children from every grade level K-6. I always need age appropriate supplies. I would spend the money on buying supplies to help them with different aspects of their development.”

Elena Check

4^th grade at Edgewood Intermediate School

“Hello! My name is Elena Check and I am a first-year 4th-grade Language Arts teacher! Although my students and I have only been together for 5 weeks, I absolutely adore all of their unique personalities. I feel as though I have learned so much from them and can’t wait to continue to grow alongside of them during this chaotic year. If we were to be fortunate enough to be selected in this drawing, we would use the gift card by adding a more diverse book selection to our library, enhance guided reading “centers”, purchase materials students are in need of, and some more hand sanitizer. We are humbled and so thankful for this opportunity!”

Tevin Shoultz

Grades 9-12 at Jennings County High School

“I currently teach three of our Family and Consumer Sciences courses at JCHS: Nutrition and Wellness, Introduction to Culinary Arts, and Culinary Arts 1. Students are provided hands-on opportunities to become more comfortable in the kitchen, informed in current food trends and nutrition, aid them in learning skills needed in the restaurant, and learning various recipes that they are able to recreate on their own. Being selected for this opportunity would help Culinary Arts 1 students be provided the payment for the opportunity to take the Serve Safe Food Handlers certification. If students pass the certification, students will be able to add the certification to their resume and make them more marketable for jobs in the food industry. I would also like to provide those same students with their own chef coat, apron, and chef hat that they will use during their lab experiences. This will help make their laboratory experiences more valuable, all while they will be putting what they have learned into practice.”

We also wanted to offer a little surprise for all teachers who entered! These teachers will be receiving an Amazon e-gift card to use in their classrooms. This is just one small way we can give back to our communities this year.

Thanks again for participating and congratulations to all the winners!