McKay School of Education > News > Pledge My Ride
MSE Alumna Organizes Bike Ride to Raise Funds for Classroom Technology
Sarah Culp, a graduate of the McKay School of Education with a degree in elementary education, teaches 5th grade at Claremont Academy, a K-8 school in South Chicago under the Chicago Public School system. Her class is progressing despite the challenges they face in an area with extreme economic challenges. Even so, up-to-date technological upgrades are badly needed in the low-budget school.
To raise the needed money for their classroom upgrades, Culp and her colleagues—two of whom are also BYU alumni—have organized a charity bike ride. The ride, detailed on the group’s blog, Pledge My Ride, will last two weeks as riders make an arduous 1,000-mile journey around Lake Michigan. They hope to raise $5,000 dollars to purchase digital cameras, printers, web cameras, projectors, and overhead document cameras.
“I hope that [this event] will inspire people to give,” Culp stated, “and help make them aware of some of the disparities in education.” She explains that the high needs of the community and school can be overwhelming for the teachers in South Chicago, an area which has a large homeless population and where 99% of the students receive free lunch at school because their parents cannot afford to buy it.
Culp graduated from BYU in elementary education and participated in the urban cohort. She moved to Chicago with her husband in 2007, where she has been teaching in inner city schools for nearly three years. “I have really enjoyed the experience and hope to provide a safe environment for students to learn,” she says.
Pledge My Ride is an excellent way to raise awareness about important disparity issues in education, Culp explains. “It will help close the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots,” she states. “Our students are bright and eager to learn, despite the circumstances that surround them.” According to the group’s philosophy, providing new educational opportunities for these students will help them break the cycles of poverty and violence.
The aim of the ride is a “technology makeover,” in Culp’s words. “These students have a unique opportunity to break destructive cycles within their environment through education,” Culp says. “Technology is an ever-increasing essential element of success in the work force, and I want my students to be prepared for the challenges of today’s working world, as well as enjoy their own learning enrichment.”
The project will allow students to learn about the world around them in new, personalized, creative ways that spark their sense of discovery. “Generosity will make it possible for our students to see the world in a much more relevant and exciting way,” Culp says. “Technological advances in the classroom can make it possible to open these students’ minds in ways they don’t even know are possible. People can make a huge difference in our classroom with their donation."
Two of the young men who are going on the ride, Tyson Ward and Matt Gardner, are also BYU alumni. “I’m excited to help out,” Ward says. “The kids at the school are amazing and deserve every opportunity to learn the skills they need to succeed.” It may be easy to see all the problems in society and think that as an individual you can’t really make a difference, Ward explains, but if he can make a difference in the lives of at least one classroom of students, he believes that the project will have been a success.
Matt Gardner states that “this ride is important because it is about improving the circumstances of underprivileged students in an underfunded school in south-side Chicago. All students deserve equal access to educational opportunities."
Donations can be given through the Pledge My Ride Website.
9 September 2009