Hello, my name is Jasmine. In 2010, I graduated college early and with honors with a Bachelor of Arts in Music. My intentions were to pursue a career in opera before eventually transitioning into Broadway. As a backup plan, I decided to enroll in a two-year master's degree program in Business Administration. Six years, and $37,000 later, I realized that the program was not for me as its main goal was to groom future employees--specifically managers--rather than entrepreneurs. While there is nothing wrong with this, I missed being in a field that allowed me to be creative, so I took a job as a Pre-K teacher's assistant and can truly say I enjoy what I do: the art projects, getting to be the students' first introduction to school, the field trips!
Then, the pandemic of 2020 hit, and we could no longer go on field trips. Instead of letting that ruin their first year of school, I decided to bring the world to them by recreating world monuments in our classroom and working with my main teacher to teach them about the culture and topography of the places I create in our classroom. Last year, we traveled to Brazil, India, Kenya, Egypt, and Hawaii. Our students loved every minute of it, and I enjoyed seeing them enjoy their travels. However, though I make most of my displays from boxes and paper found around the school, there is still a significant amount of my own money that goes into making these displays and murals.
This year, we would like to take our students to Italy amongst other places, and it would be mean the world to my teacher and me to be able to free up my student loan debt with a little leftover so that I can afford to buy even more materials for my class (things that aren't covered by grants), and perhaps go to Italy over spring break to share both my love of opera and travel in a video diary through our virtual learning hub.
Below, I have enclosed pictures of my classroom displays. Every penny counts and I thank you in advance for your charitable donation.
