"A Day Made Better" Office Max Teacher Giveaway

On behalf of the “A Day Made Better” cause for teachers, you can nominate your teacher to win a gift card to OfficeMax for school supplies! Keep reading to find out how....

You know that song by the Black Eyed Peas: I've got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night..... Or that song by Priscilla Ahn: I can tell it's gonna be a good day.... Well, I've got a feeling that today's gonna be even better... because today, October 5, OfficeMax is hosting its national “A Day Made Better” event. Approximately 30,000 OfficeMax associates will surprise and honor more than 1,000 dedicated teachers at Title 1 schools across the nation today, with $1 million worth of classroom supplies – that's $1,000 per classroom!

I first heard about "A Day Made Better" one year ago, when I did a Back-to-School webcast with OfficeMax. I also had the pleasure of meeting Heather, a.k.a. Tween Teacher, a middle school teacher and blogger who appeared on the webcast with me. She was the one who first opened my eyes to the sad reality that many teachers actually have to spend their own money to buy supplies for the kids they teach! I've since learned that teachers are now spending an average of $1,000 out-of-pocket annually on classroom supplies to offset budget shortfalls; this figure was first cited by a National Education Association survey in 2005 and confirmed by an OfficeMax survey of teachers in June 2009.

I think it's a shame that teachers have to pick up the tab -- if they were employed by Wall Street bankers I wouldn't care, but the way teachers are paid they can barely afford their own tape and scissors. I have enormous respect for teachers and the work they do -- a good teacher can truly change a child's life and set him on the right path -- and I've wanted to be a part of Office Max's A Day Made Better program ever since I heard about it.


And now I am! I've been selected by Office Max to join their Max Moms for teachers program to help create awareness and give back to teachers. As a Max Mom, I'll be writing some posts on the Day Made Better blog and helping to create awareness of this important cause.


My first task: a giveaway! No, not for you.... this one's for your teacher!


Nominate Your Teacher to Win a $100 OfficeMax gift card

Office Max is going to help you make your favorite teacher's day better! You too can join in this cause and give back to a deserving teacher by nominating your favorite teacher to receive a $100 gift card for school supplies donated by OfficeMax.

Required Entry
Leave a comment on this post and nominate a deserving teacher you know. Please describe in your comment why the teacher you’d like to nominate is 1) Passionate; 2) Dedicated and 3) Innovative. This entry must be completed before extra entries qualify.


Extra Entries
For extra entries, you can do any or all of the following. Please leave a separate comment for each extra entry with a way to verify the entry (i.e. tweet link, blog post link, Facebook id, Twitter id, etc.).

1) Visit the Welcome tab on OfficeMax’s Facebook page and post a comment on their wall, telling them what you think of their Facebook donation campaign benefiting Adopt-A-Classroom, or of the "A Day Made Better" program in general (1 entry).

2) Post a comment on the cause blog at ADayMadeBetterBlog.com (1 entry).

3) Write a comment on the Bonggamom Finds Facebook page and tell my why you support the "A Day Made Better" cause (1 entry).

4) Follow A Day Made Better on Twitter and tweet this, up to once per day (1 entry per day, leave a comment with the tweet link for each tweet):

@ADayMadeBetter is giving a $100 GC to a deserving teacher! Nominate yours on @bonggafinds http://tinyurl.com/2ekpspv #giveaways #MaxMoms


The Rules
This giveaway ends at 11:59PM PST on October 20, 2010; I will draw a winner at random on October 21 and post the winner's name after the winner confirms acceptance. Note: I will be asking the winner for the teacher's name, school name and email address so I can verify that the gift card will be sent to a deserving teacher. US addresses only. . For additional giveaway rules, click here. Thanks for supporting this great cause

Disclosure: I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post. As an Office Max Mom, I received some Office Max rubber band balls, some pens and a shirt -- my real reward was the opportunity to help out a deserving teacher. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.