Programs & Support

Recognition

We bring fully catered lunches to schools so that teachers get the love they deserve! Partnerships with restaurants like The Spaghetti Shack, Blanco Cocina + Cantina, Little Os, The Vig, Olive Garden, Carolina’s Mexican Food, Dave and Buster’s and Helpings Cafe allow us to bring these lunches to schools, engaging the business community in celebrating and recognizing teachers.

In partnership with Mix 96.9 & other sponsors, between September and May, we feature one extra-amazing community-nominated teacher each month and highlight their teaching career achievements in a celebrity-big way! Our One In A Million featured teacher speaks with Priscilla & Joey on air, receives an extensive gift package at a Green Carpet Gift Presentation at their campus, and a number of other special perks all month long!

Our goal is to make ALL educators FEEL LIKE A MILLION DOLLARS! The whole community is invited to vote for their favorite educator from our One in a Million featured teachers at the end of the academic year. This teacher will receive a fabulous Grand Prize package, be announced and celebrated at our end-of-year fundraising gala, the Adult Field Trip!

Watch or listen to some very special students interview equally as remarkable teachers! Hear about their teaching stories, bloopers in the classroom, meaningful gifts and moments, and why being a teacher means MILLIONS to them!

Follow our Pinterest Board for creative ideas on how to recognize the teachers on your staff.

It is important for students to participate in teacher appreciation. Each year we partner with a school to challenge their students to creatively decorate their teachers door for chances to win a prize for their classroom. One catch, the design somehow has to incorporate our mascot Benjamin somehow. The designs are posted on our social media pages and the community votes on the winner!

What started as a way to celebrate teachers that were making an impact at their school, in their classroom, and in their students’ lives has now become an opportunity for the whole community to celebrate, recognize and thank a special teacher for the impact that he/she has made in your life!

Compensation

The key to any innovation, and to successfully change a system, is sustainability. As MDTP grows, we want our capacity to impact teacher compensation in creative ways to grow with us. The In Teachers We Trust Endowment Fund is our mechanism to, not only support innovative strategies to increase teacher compensation long-term, but to also offer emergency assistance to teachers experiencing hardships, offer scholarships to educators looking to further their education, provide field trip grants to teachers looking to take their students on educational outings, and to offer basic needs assistance to families identified by teachers. Our ambitious goal with this fund is to create an education endowment in all 50 states in the U.S.

The purpose of the T.A.P. program is to create a new way for the community to support local businesses while also supporting teachers. Businesses have the chance to collaborate with Million Dollar Teacher Project and Local First Arizona by offering meaningful discounts for certified K-12 teachers in Arizona. MDTP is also partnering with Treasures 4 Teachers, Cindy Brown Family Mindset Strategist, Keeping Teachers Teaching, Parent Led Academy, Phoenix Community Alliance and Gordon Health Group.

Support

MDTP leverages partnerships to place talented individuals in classrooms to lighten the load on educators. The team includes a technology specialist, student teacher, teaching assistant, and parent engagement specialist, successfully improving teacher morale and student performance.

We take multiple approaches in creating pathways for the community to be involved in getting teachers the extra support they need to accomplish the goals they have in helping students achieve success in the classroom. We allow teachers to dream BIG (because that is the example we want them to set for their students) and create a list of things for which they need support, and we share this list with our supporters.

This initiative was created in an effort to partner with schools, businesses and the local community on creating spaces on school campuses that serve as on going reminders to teachers of just how valued they are.

Upcoming Programs

Teacher League

The Teacher League App will be an innovative platform designed to create new revenue streams for educators and our initiatives. Teachers will be able to upload videos of their best lesson for competitions. Income from advertising will fund prizes for teachers and go towards an endowment fund for schools to put towards teacher salaries.

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Growing the Tree

Million Dollar Teacher Tree was first developed in a classroom by students in a program called, Next Generation Service Corps at Arizona State University in December of 2017. These students were tasked by Lloyd Hopkins, founder of Million Dollar Teacher project with developing a project that can potentially become an integral part in helping MDTP achieve its mission. The group eventually developed the original prototype for Million Dollar Teacher Tree—a cutout dollar sign that would be placed in surrounding businesses near the partner school. The idea was pitched to staff members of MDTP during the last of their class, and the project was picked up by MDTP as a new pilot program for the organization. After many months of planning, the prototype was eventually revamped into what it is today, Million Dollar Teacher Tree.

Golden Apple

These apples are intended to provide any sort of Professional Development which, in turn, gifts them with key knowledge to add to their personal skill-set to better work with their students.

As educators, teachers are constantly looking to continually grow in their profession to not only learn how to better connect with their students, but to also make the learning experience much more exciting.

Suggested donation amount range: $10 – $100

Red Apple

These apples are designed to provide the typical day-to-day items in the classroom. Teachers spend can spend upwards of $1,000 out of pocket to have enough supplies yearlong for their students– to alleviate this, the Red Apples were created.

Everyday school supplies include; pencils, notebooks, crayons, hand sanitizer, etc.

Green Apple

These apples are intended to provide a big-ticket item for the teachers. These supplies are typically something that the teachers can use for more than one school year.

Examples include; a class-set of computers or new furniture for the classroom.

Suggested donation amount: $500+