Help bring technology to a rural elementary

Hi, my name is Andrew (Mr. Wellman), and I'm fundraising for my classroom.

I'm a first year Technology Instructor at a rural elementary (3rd-6th) for 500+ kids.

We are a Title 1 school with low supplemental education services (SES). What does this mean for technology? Unfortunately, the limited budget is allocated before it reaches our room, and I'm starting from scratch.

I love our school and have no doubts that I could propose a plan and fundraise for my classroom, but it will be years of selling pies and shirts before we start to see any traction...

These kids are excited and ready to learn now.

I'm excited and ready to teach right now.

I'm a new and passionate teacher wanting to take everything I've learned from my career and traveling the country and bring it back to the small hometown where I grew up. My goal is to pour into these kids and get them excited about the digital world they're entering and show them cool and creative opportunities they might not have experienced otherwise. They thought they were entering another year of typing class, but we started coding day one.

5 years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer. My family sold everything we owned, left behind my career in design and engineering and hit the road to spend whatever time I had left with each other. We started a couple product design eCommerce businesses raising money for kids with cancer and ended up living in a tiny house in Bend, Oregon for the last two years where I went back to school for web development (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) while working for a nonprofit mentoring youth facing the biggest obstacles.

This is where I fell in love with helping kids and realized I could mix my tech career and heart for people by taking everything I've learned and experienced back to our small town Indiana with the hopes of creating more creators.

This GoFundMe started because I posted my car for sale on Facebook to raise money for these items and our community responded with love and support and encouraged me to try this instead. So, here we are! :)

Wishlist:

$2,650 - Sphero Bolt Power Pack (Coding Robots)

$4,990 - Glowforge Pro w/ Air Filter (Laser Cutter)

$1,849 - Makerbot Sketch Classroom (3d Printer)

$9,489 Total

Of course, there will be more I need to buy along with this like computers, desks, consumables and other classroom needs like power strips and filling blank walls, but I wanted to cover the biggest items here to get us going, and I can tackle these next.

Bottom line:

I've always had a hodge-podge resume that never made any sense to me. I went to college for Architecture, I've been a mechanical engineer in the forging industry, I've programmed 5 axis CNC's for woodworking, I've been a furniture designer, a product developer with cool things like lasers, UV printers, injection molders and die cutters and lately freelance as a web developer coding sites and games. What do you do with that background? TEACH! With your help, I can show these kids more.

Thank you.

One last thing. I always leave my kids with a joke, so this shouldn't be any different, right?

What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday?

Aye Matey.