How to connect with education and impact professionals to support local kid programs
Last Tuesday, I swept crumpled Goldfish crackers and broken pencil leads off the folding tables at the end of my weekly free homework club, and found a crumpled crayon drawing tucked under a scuffed bench. The rec center meeting room still smells like old gym socks and lemon Pledge when we leave, and I stuffed the drawing in my coat pocket without thinking much of it. It was a big gray rectangle with lumpy keys along the bottom, labeled “My Chromebook For Homework” in 8-year-old Mia’s wobbly handwriting. I stuck it to my fridge when I got home, and that’s when I decided I needed to stop trying to patch this together on my own.
I’m a 4th grade teacher in a small town outside Dayton, Ohio. I started the club 18 months ago after I noticed a third of my students didn’t have reliable internet or a quiet place to finish homework after school. Most live in households where multiple people are working shifts, so the dining table is always full for dinner, and half don’t have a working computer at home to log into Google Classroom. The rec center gave us a spare room for free, and I chip in $50 a month for snacks and printing. That’s all the budget we have. We have three hand-me-down laptops from when my school district upgraded a few years back, but two die after 45 minutes of use, and the rec center Wi-Fi can’t handle more than one device connected at a time without cutting out.
Last semester, a 6th grader named Lila had to present her climate change project without the slides she’d worked on for three weeks, because we couldn’t get the old donated projector to connect to the network. She cried in the parking lot after club, and her mom texted me later saying it wasn’t my fault, that we’d done everything we could. But I’ve been turning it over in my head ever since. This isn’t a problem that gets fixed with more bake sales or more posts in the local parent Facebook group. I tried that already. I put out a call for old working laptops a few months back, got seven donated. Four wouldn’t turn on, two were too old to update to the security software kids need to log into their school accounts, and only one actually worked. That one laptop gets passed between 14 kids every week.
That’s when I realized I need to connect with people who do this work every day. People who know where the resources are, who’ve built programs like this before, who can help me stop guessing and start making actual change. I’m not looking for a big fancy organization to take over the club. I just want to learn, connect, and see what’s possible.
If you’re a teacher or parent running a small local program, and you’ve never reached out to people outside your immediate circle before, let me share what I’ve learned so far. First, you don’t need a registered non-profit or a fancy website to start. I started small: I went to a local monthly mixer for tech startups and small businesses that the chamber of commerce hosts. I used to think these events were just for people in suits swapping business cards for deals, but I went anyway. I printed 20 copies of Mia’s drawing at the local library, cut them to size, and handed one to anyone who asked what I did. No generic flyers with a million bullet points, just that drawing and a one-sentence explanation: I run a free homework club for kids who don’t have devices at home, and I’m looking for people who can help. That got more conversations in an hour than I’ve had in six months of posting on Facebook.
Second, be specific about what you need, don’t just ask for “help”. When people ask what I’m looking for, I don’t say “I need support for my club”. I list the exact things connections can help with: I’m looking for EdTech folks who can point me to discounted or free refurbished devices, or free app licenses for low-income students. I want to talk to CSR coordinators at local tech companies who know about the small community grant programs that don’t get a lot of publicity. I want to hear from NGO workers who’ve built digital equity programs before, so they can tell me what mistakes I should avoid that I don’t even know I’m making. I’m happy to connect with startup founders who are building new learning tools and want feedback from a group of kids that actually need affordable, accessible resources. I want to talk to community builders who’ve organized local kid programs before and can share what works for outreach and volunteer recruitment. Even just 15 minutes of your time to share a connection is more than I have right now.
I used to feel awkward reaching out to strangers, like I was imposing or begging. But I’ve found most people in these fields got into this work because they want to make a difference, they just don’t know about small local programs like ours. Last week I emailed a local EdTech founder I found through LinkedIn, and he replied an hour later saying he couldn’t donate devices right now, but he’s connecting me to a friend at a state-wide non-profit that refurbishes devices for community programs for free. That’s more than I had a week ago.
I joined a couple free regional LinkedIn groups for EdTech and non-profit education leaders last month, too. Instead of posting my request right away, I spent a week commenting on other people’s posts, asking questions about work they were doing, and sharing small observations from my own club before I mentioned what I was working on. That got way more genuine responses than dropping a link and a request right off the bat.
I don’t have this all figured out yet. We still turn away two or three kids every week because we don’t have enough space or resources. Mia still draws her dream chromebook instead of using one at club. I’m still just a teacher with an after-school club and a crayon drawing on my fridge. But I know doing this alone isn’t working. If you’re working in EdTech, education, social impact, CSR, NGOs, community building, technology, or startups and have 15 minutes to chat, or a connection to share, I’d love to hear from you. And if you’re another parent or teacher in the same boat, feel free to steal what’s worked for me so far. It’s slow going, but it’s already better than patching broken laptops together with duct tape and hope.
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