To bring the ocean to special education students at Ironwood Ridge High School, Adrienne Ledford asked her brother in Maryland to send seashells.
Then, she asked for shark teeth.
Feeling the shells’ ridges and points of the shark teeth, her desert-dwelling students experienced an ocean lesson with hands-on materials in addition to text and video.
It was 2013 and that lack of educational materials is the origin story of Treasures 4 Teachers of Tucson — a northwest side warehouse and traveling, overstuffed van with teaching supplies for every grade level. The nonprofit offers everything from ringed binders to loose leaf paper, baggies of reassembled crayons, PVC pipes and hundreds of dry erase markers.
Ledford’s solution to bridge the gaps among classroom needs, students and educators was revealed when her time as a teacher’s aide showed many schools cannot afford to provide free supplies. When she discovered Treasures 4 Teachers in Tempe, she knew Southern Arizona needed the store. The two are related in name only, she said. Running the nonprofit is now her full-time work.
Treasures 4 Teachers members pay $35 to join. Each visit, supply bags are $5. Supplies (and sometimes memberships) are donated.
“We have everything a teacher needs,” Ledford said. “If you have a parent that can’t afford $100 in supplies, and it falls back on the teacher. We bridge that gap.”
Each school year, teachers spend between $500 to $750 of their own money, according to the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country representing public school teachers and other education professionals. Ledford and other local educators say teachers sometimes spend thousands.
This time of year, the warehouse bustles with teachers from across Tucson. And Ledford makes weekly trips to schools with goodie bags of free stuff for staff. Principals just need to make a call to recruit her. We checked in with Ledford, 72, about how she makes it all happen.
Three things to know about Treasures 4 Teachers of Tucson:
- Educators should be schooled on the valuable resource: “I wish I had known about some place like this when I was a first-year teacher because it’s a resource that’s just awe-inspiring when you walk in the door,” said Rob Beets, a middle school English language development teacher at Roskruge Bilingual K8 Magnet. In his 22nd year of teaching, Beets says “you could spend a couple of hours there just looking.”
- Call it a bread clip, bread tag, bread tie or bread clasp: By any name, Ledford cites the plastic piece that closes a bread bag as one of the weirdest items in the warehouse. “They use them for arts and crafts. They’re easy to glue on paper. They are in high demand. I don’t know what they do with them. I put them in a bin and they go,” she said. Also in the quirky category: Golf tees, golf pencils and floppy disks.
- Everything is donated: Ledford encourages teachers and families to repurpose items — especially at the end of the school year. “Then it doesn’t end up in a landfill. Don’t throw away crayons without pointy tips,” she said. Collect those cardboard toilet paper and paper-towel rolls, egg cartons and jars of all types — they are used for STEM projects. The best part? For Roskruge principal Maricella Carranza, “It’s teacher thrifting.”
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