I absolutely love when companies make a commitment to education and one of my favorite companies is making a HUGE commitment! Target will donate $5 million to schools across the country as part of their Give with Target program!

How Target is Giving and How YOU Can Help

There are two ways that Target is distributing the $5 million to schools.

– School Grants: 100 schools in-need will receive $25,000 grants from Target just in time for the start of the school year! The total donation will be $2.5 million to help schools across the country.

– Vote for your School: Visit Target’s Facebook page and you can vote for YOUR school to receive a Target gift card! For every 25 Facebook votes that a school receives, Target will donate a $25 Target Gift Card for a maximum donation of $10,000 per school! The total donation will be up to $2.5 million for schools nationwide!

Make sure to head to Target’s Facebook page to vote for the school of your choice! It’s easy to search by school name or city. Voting ends on September 8th OR when the $2.5 million of Target Gift Cards have been awarded, so make sure to vote early! You can spread the news via Twitter and Facebook after you’ve voted to rally support for your school!

In-School Celebrations

Target is also surprising 4 schools across the country with special in-school celebrations where they are presented with the $25,000 grant and also a special surprise. Last week I had the amazing opportunity to visit Siegel Elementary School in Saint Louis to watch the celebration in person!

We were able to watch all of the teachers bring the children out into the parking lot and they had no idea what was going on! Only Dr. Kevin R. Adams, Superintendent and Dr. Evelyn Woods, Principal knew that this was going to happen!

Once all the kids were seated outside, Target’s ‘Bullseye Bus’ pulled into the parking lot!

The Target ‘Bullseye Bus’ is traveling the country to surprise the schools in-person and you can track the bus online to see where it is! But not only was the school getting surprised with a $25,000 grant, they were also getting surprised with a special celebrity guest!

Courtesy of Invision for Target

Bridgit Mendler, who plays Teddy on Good Luck Charlie in addition to releasing an album soon, stepped off the bus and the kids went crazy! They were yelling and screaming and it was so hard to keep back the tears especially as Bridgit went on stage and announced to the children and staff that not only were they receiving the $25,000 grant, but they were also receiving $20,00 in school supplies! When I looked around, it was hard to find someone who wasn’t crying!

Courtesy of Invision for Target

Courtesy of Invision for Target

After they presented this wonderful surprise, the students and staff headed into the gym where they would create and read a story for Bridgit – the kids loved it!

Courtesy of Invision for Target

Talking with Jenna Reck from Target

I had the opportunity to speak with Jenna Reck, who works with Target about this amazing campaign.

Education is really important to Target. We know it’s important to our guests, it’s their top social concern. So because of that reason, Target is also very concerned. We are on track to give $1 billion to education by 2015 so this is a small piece of a huge commitment that Target has.

When asked how the 100 in-need schools were chosen, Jenna said:

It’s definitely a process. We really think working with the schools is the best way to determine what the biggest need is. We reached out to different superintendents this spring in a bunch of markets across the country where we have a big Target presence. We asked superintendents to nominate school in their area and give us a couple reasons on why that school is deserving or in need. Then we worked with the superintendents to pick the 100 schools. We wanted a diverse mix of schools, they had to be non-profit, they all had to be in-need.

 

Talking with Dr. Evelyn Woods, Principal of Sigel Elementary

I had the chance to talk to Dr. Evelyn Woods, the principal of Sigel Elementary about this amazing gift to the school.

When asked how she feels about everything, Dr. Woods said:

I am very excited, it’s a wonderful day. We are planning a lot of things for the kids. My heart is just heavy, this is so exciting.

When asked about what she would do with the grant money for the school, Dr. Woods:

Our big focus is literacy. We are going to purchase classroom libraries for each classroom. Book boxes for independent reading and journals.

Talking with Bridgit Mendler

When talking to Bridgit Mendler, I had the chance to ask her what her favorite part of the campaign was.

There’s a lot of stuff that I really enjoy about it but the thing I enjoy the best is physically going to the schools and meeting the kids, being able to see their excitement. It’s so amazing to be able to do work that allows you to have opportunities to make a difference. I just love the cause. Education is really important and it’s how we build up our youth. I think that’s another amazing thing about Give with Target, that is their main focus.

 

I had such an amazing time at this Give with Target event and the chance to learn more about what Target is doing to help education in the country.

Don’t forget to spread the word and vote for your school on Facebook! Make sure to check back soon for a giveaway of a Target Backpack filled with goodies!

Disclosure: I attended the Give with Target event but did not receive any compensation. All thoughts and opinions are my own.