For the Reporter

Google recently gave an unexpected gift to teachers and students in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

Calling it “Flash Funding,” Google funded projects for teachers in those counties on DonorsChoose.org – an online charity that makes it easy for the public to donate to specific public school projects.

Teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on the site, and donors choose which projects they want to support and can give any amount to any project they want to support.

Fourteen Auburn teachers had 16 projects listed on DonorsChoose.org on Sept. 15. Google funded all of them, for a total of about $15,000. The project requests included classroom bookshelves, yoga mats, graphing calculators and new classroom books.

Flash Funding raised $343,315, funding 388 projects and impacting 39,711 students throughout three counties.

“I am overwhelmed by Google’s generosity. My students and I will be singing their praises,” said Erica Pogue, Pioneer Elementary music teacher, who received funding for a classroom set of ukuleles. “I cannot wait to start teaching my sweet students to play the ukulele, and it’s all because of companies like Google who have huge hearts and value music in schools.”