For nearly three decades, university graduates have touched the lives of future generations through Teach for America.
The non-profit selects the best of its applicants and sends them out on two-year assignments to K-12 schools in low-income communities, wherein many students don’t know when their next meal is coming from.
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Teach for America placed Rachel Faust at an elementary school in Miami, Van E. Blanton Elementary School, where an incredible 99 percent of students come from low-income families. Many depend on school lunches as their only source of nourishment for the day.
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One student, in particular, touched Rachel’s heart one day when she began nodding off in class. Rachel took her into the hallway and started reprimanding her, trying to drill in the importance of paying attention in class and staying focused.
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The student apologized, then explained she couldn’t stay awake because “I’m just so hungry. I know I’m not doing my best. I missed breakfast and we haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday.â€
“I’m on my knees looking at this six-year-old, chastising her for not being focused, and she’s starving,”Rachel recalled.
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After a suggestion from her mother, Rachel wrote a letter to The Ellen Degeneres Show back in 2012, describing daily life at her school and telling her “about my kids, my classroom, and what I love about teaching.â€
When she got a call from the show’s producers, asking her to come out to a taping — which just happened to coincide with her 25th birthday — she happily agreed. But she was only expecting to be an audience member, so it came as a complete shock when she arrived at the studio and was told she was going to be interviewed by Ellen herself!
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But the best surprise? When Ellen presented her with a check for $100,000 from the charitable leg of JC Penney’s — money that would go toward helping fund some of the necessities at Rachel’s school that the teachers had been paying out of their own pockets!
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Who’s more deserving of this kind of acknowledgment and praise than a teacher who goes to bat for her students?
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