WEST SPRINGFIELD– A West Springfield elementary school teacher who goes above and beyond to provide for her students got a huge surprise when a website she’s used to provide resources for her students gifted two schools with a huge donation, all while on live television.

Jami Witherell joined the Philip G. Coburn Elementary School, this fall as a fifth grade English Language Learners teacher after working in Greenfield at the Newton School for several years. Witherell left the Newton School at the end of the 2018-2019 academic year to be closer to her mother, who fell ill.

West Springfield Schools Superintendent, Michael Richard, said despite being new to West Springfield, “She goes above and beyond. She’s truly an extraordinary educator, she’s truly an ambassador to Donors Choose.

For years, Witherell told Reminder Publishing one way she’s been able to provide for her students has been by using a website called DonorsChoose. The website allowed her, and continues to allow her, to fund various projects that provide her students access to materials and resources to further their education.

Richard, explained DonorsChoose as a “crowd-sourcing website.” “Teachers put projects on the website, projects are vetted, and if they meet the standards then they populate it to the website then people can go online and decide what projects they want to contribute to,” he said. “The one criteria that I know of is that the project needs to benefit students, not adults. It needs to make learning more beneficial and accessible to students.”

He acknowledged that ultimately, the school would love to be able to fund every project presented by teachers, but there are limitations to what the district is able to do. “We’d love to fund these projects with our own budget, but there are limits,” he said.

This, Witherell said, is part of the advantage of the website. She said, “[I’m] not bound by a district or school budget, or what my students parents can provide.” She continued,” This idea of allowing educators to feel limitless is a challenge because we can’t just go around spending money.” DonorsChoose, she said, has helped significantly with this.

Witherell first began using the website several years ago. She said, “About six years ago my former principal said, ‘I have a $50 gift card for DonorsChoose. I don’t know what it is, do you want to use it?’” From there, she began using the website regularly to provide for her students.

She told Reminder Publishing there’s no limit to what types of projects you can finance through the website. It can be something as small as a yoga mat or water bottles, or a project as large as funding an education visit by someone to the classroom.

Witherell said while she was teaching in Greenfield her students practiced yoga with an instructor from England. After one of her students suggested funding the instructor’s trip through DonorsChoose, the money was able to be raised to bring them over and have a full day of yoga in the class. “Sure enough $3,500 later we had a full day of yoga, and here comes Jami from England,” she said.

While in Greenfield, Witherell said she was able to raise more than $70,000 through donors on the website, and recently she finished funding her 100th project through DonorsChoose. “It has been such an integral part of who I am as a teacher and how I help students,” she said. So she wasn’t surprised when DonorsChoose reached out to her in June to discuss the program during a segment during Good Morning America (GMA) on Sept. 13.

However, that morning GMA surprised her. Instead of her speaking about DonorsChoose, GMA and DonorsChoose worked together to not only bring a busload of students and staff from Newton School, but also provided a $15,000 donation for both the Coburn School and Newton School.

Witherell said she was incredibly surprised when her former coworkers and students stepped off the bus. “When they came it blew my mind because I had talked to so many of them the night before and they said they couldn’t come. I literally had no idea when they got off the bus.”

While there have been no definitive plans on how to use the money within each school, Witherell said, “There’s so many wonderful projects that the teachers have written, so part of me imagines it being sprinkled throughout the building.”

She added that she’d also, ideally, like to see some of the money go towards investing in technology within the school. Currently, she said, the 20 classrooms share a Chromebook cart. “With students acquiring language, the more access they have to access like this will help them,” she said.

Richard said that while the district hasn’t had a consistent approach to using DonorsChoose, since GMA and the website recognized Witherell, activity has gone up. “We’ve used it sporadically, there hasn’t been a consistent approach to using it. But I think with the recognition that Jamie got last week we’ve seen an increase in activity on DonorsChoose.”

Witherell said the most important thing that’s come from using DonorsChoose has been allowing her students to know that they matter. “The bigger thing that comes from DonorsChoose and goes to my students is that you’re seen, you matter, you’re loved. No matter what the district can provide someone in the U.S. sees you and wants to support you.”