SONIC Supporting Schools and Teachers

*Disclosure: I was compensated for sharing this information with you. These opinions are my own, and were not influenced by another person.

I love hearing about companies that use their successes to help others. I’m especially fond of companies that make it a point to support and empower teachers, children and education.

It’s no secret that teachers are spending their own funds to buy supplies needed to make their classrooms a fun and creative learning environment for their students. To help combat this, SONIC recently donated $1 million to fund teacher projects resulting in 58,080 students impacted. A total of 288 cities from coast to coast felt the impact of SONIC’s generous donation and soon teachers and guest will have a chance to help decide where the next round of funds goes.

SONIC Drive-In, the nation’s largest chain of drive-in restaurants, completed its ninth annual Limeades for Learning® fall voting campaign on Sunday, Oct. 22. The campaign funded $1 million to 1,936 public school teacher projects over the four-week period. In partnership with DonorsChoose.org, this national award winning and consumer-driven cause campaign empowers guests to make a difference in public school classroom by allocating SONIC’s $1 million donation to teachers’ projects.

From Monday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Oct. 22, SONIC guests and fans told SONIC where to place its $1 million donation by voting at LimeadesforLearning.com for projects they wanted funded through Limeades for Learning. Throughout the voting period, projects with the most votes each week received funding. This year, the campaign impacted 978 teachers across 288 cities including San Antonio, Texas., Memphis, Tenn., Oklahoma City, Okla., and Fayetteville, N.C.

“Science can already be a difficult subject for students to comprehend – but without helpful tools and resources to create a hands-on lesson, it can be even more frustrating for students,” said Caitlin Cleary, kindergarten teacher for Naples Elementary School in Naples, Utah. “This was my first year participating in Limeades for Learning and I can already see the results from my project, ‘The Science of Literacy’. With the new materials, my students are drawing a deeper understanding from our lessons and are transforming into literary scientists that can explore text in new ways.”

Following this year’s Limeades for Learning fall voting campaign, SONIC has funded a total of $9.5 million for 17,895 classroom projects, impacting more than 536,850 students in 1,701 cities since the campaign’s inception in 2009.

“Since 2009, our partnership with SONIC’s Limeades for Learning has helped fulfill thousands of teacher projects, and nine years later, it continues to have a big impact in America’s classrooms,” says Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose.org. “Every year, SONIC has funded innovative projects that bring musical instruments, books, field trips, tablets and much more to public school students across the nation.”