[Southsider2k12]

http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...amp;TM=48913.98

Pines school instructor receives gifts from store

Deborah Sederberg
The News-Dispatch

PINE TOWNSHIP - Tuesday morning began with a fog delay at Pine elementary school.

So teacher Lori Deutscher was surprised when employees of the Michigan City Office Max store strode into her classroom with more than $1,400 worth and a large bouquet of flowers and balloons.

Deutscher, who teaches second grade, was one of 1,000 classrooms nationwide to be surprised by Office Max with supplies for their classrooms.

Office Max began the campaign because the office supply store realized that teachers spend an average of $1,200 of their own money each year to equip their classrooms. Individual and corporate donors support the program.

Heather Cruz, sales manager for the Michigan City Office Max, along with employees Jeremy Cruz (no relation), Sylvia Guel and Sarah Emerick, brought Deutscher's goodies in a yellow cardboard box balanced on a media cart, which was one of the gifts.

She also received a digital camera and a Lexmark printer, a leather desk chair and lots of pens, paper, dry-erase markers, rulers, glue sticks, a map of the world and other items.

"Just last week, when we were studying the continents, I was wishing for a map of the world," Deutscher said.

Pine Principal Sally Roberts was contacted by Office Max and asked to nominate a teacher.

"While our staff members are all dedicated," Roberts said, "Lori has been going above and beyond for a long time."

Deutscher has been teaching for 30 years with the Michigan City Area Schools, 28 of those years at Pine.

Although students were not in class for the big surprise because of the fog delay, nearly all of the Pine staff gathered in her classroom. Deutscher had been called to another area of a school for a conveniently timed meeting with the guidance department.

When she returned, the surprise awaited.

"The Office Max folks were here and the rest of the staff and the newspaper photographer," she said. "I felt like the whole world was here."

Have other teachers offered to take excess supplies off her hands?

"I think I saw some of them eyeing the big yellow cardboard box," she said, "but that's how we are, how teachers are. We're always thinking about how to make extra storage space out of a box, or something else for the classroom."



Contact Deborah Sederberg at dsederberg@thenewsdispatch.com.

[Roger Kaputnik]

Far out!