Donate Your Space-Consuming Modern Cards to an Elementary School

[npa589]

Hey all:

I remember a thread a little while back that discussed this topic of what to do with all of those cards of Greg Gagne, Tom Henke, Rudy Seanez, and Todd Hollandsworth, or Fat Lever, Shawn Bradley, and Bimbo Coles if we're talking about basketball. I couldn't find the thread, but I mentioned briefly what I did with mine.

Anyway, my brother and I would go to card shops as kids (mid 90s), and amassed many cards of no real monetary value --- as I am sure many of you did as well. They now either make our parents upset, or our wives, as they occupy space in bins or boxes, because we simply can't throw them away. In WI, where I grew up, some of the card shops would have raffles, and many of the prizes included boxes that would hold 750 cards (fun for kids, but I remember really being a kid that paid attention to "Beckett" prices, and noticed that they literally removed every card that was a RC or any type of semi-star). We probably won 20 over the course of a few years.

We also would acquire any cards found by my dad, who at the time owned 13 inner-city properties that he rented out. We got bins full of them. I'm now in my 4th year of teaching (music) at an inner-city school which happens to be one of, if not the toughest elementary school in the county,and I brought all of those cards to school a couple years back and still have a few thousand here (I probably had 8 or 9 thousand baseball/basketball/football cards that I brought from home).

The kids love them, and it has helped to completely turn around some of the students' behavior. It's a behavior incentive program I use for certain kids in my class, as well as how they behave in their normal classroom. Entire classes will also frequently get them if they had an especially good day in my classroom. I'm rather tough though, which you have to be here, so if any kid asks me for one, I say no. The idea is always having to earn it, never getting what they ask for or want. The students absolutely love it, from K-5. They ask all the time. I'd like to be able to give them to various classroom teachers, and have done so, but I run out quickly when I start doing that. I'd like to have more to give away.



If you are interested in donating cards (nothing of any value), the only thing required would be to ship them to me in any type of box, and they do NOT need to be neatly arranged. They can be stacked, piled, unwrapped, and condition does not matter at all. The only reason why there would be a need to organize them would be to include as many as possible in one shipment. School closes June 6th down here, so they would need to be shipped before that so that I can bring them to school and not have them sitting at my house!

If you're at all interested, contact me at with the header of "WRES Sports Card Donation" along with your name:

the.cards.of.our.pastime@gmail.com



P.S. If you donate cards, I will take a picture of them at their home within my classroom to offer some finality to your donation. I want to make sure you know they went to their destined place!

[BradH]

Great idea. Email sent.

[npa589]

Awesome! Thank you Brad!

[npa589]

Here are some reasons to donate:

1. It literally serves as a huge incentive for many students to make better choices while at school --- if only for the reason that they realize there is a teacher willing to show enough interest to reward them when they actually DO do something right. Many of the most challenging kids are ones that only hear about what they do wrong, so much so, that that is what becomes their identity.

2. Their excitement level when they get to pick out a card is unreal, just like when we would go with our Dads, brothers, or whomever to open up a pack, or go home and sift through the cards we already had. By the way, in my boxes, I also had a ton of empty packs from who knows how many mid 90s sets (mostly baseball and basketball). I put like 5 cards in an empty pack for certain students that are in the program if they had a "good day". If a kid is in the program, all they have to do, when not in my class, is show me their Behavior plan and that they had a "Smiley face" for that day, and out comes 2 or 3 cards.

3. These kids are growing up in a generation where collecting cards isn't as widespread, and many of them keep all the cards I've given them, and begin to organize and put them in groups. (Sound familiar you guys?). I've given some old 9-pocket pages I had to some kids as well so that they can organize them. In 15 years, who knows, some of them may be on Net54 talking with us. Many of the kids love sports, especially the ones that receive the most cards for "good days".

4. I figure I have given cards to over 600 different kids in 2+ years of doing this. It's not the cards as much as it is the attention, mentoring, and interest shown, but I know they have helped as a vehicle to bring kids from level 1s to level 3s. "Do your homework, read at home, get your behavior/learning plan signed by your teacher, and you get a card."

[cubsfan-budman]

What do you do for girls in your classes? Do they enjoy them as much, or do you have different incentives for them?

I was going to make up a box for a neighbor who's a teacher (loved the idea, obviously), but I didn't want to just be making up something for half of her class...

[npa589]

Depends on the age for girls in the school, typically. 4th and 5th grade girls don't care as much, but K-3 (especially K-2) are ecstatic that they were given a reward. The situations for many of these kids is far below ideal (a completely different topic), so anything that they receive (or anything they earn, which is what I stress) is like a small treasure. A very high percentage of the behavioral challenges, however, are with the boys --- which is what prompted me to bring in cards in the first place. All the kids I "mentor" are boys, and even though I'm the music teacher, I played baseball and basketball extensively through high-school --- so, when able, I'll go out to P.E. and chuck the football around and school them in basketball. The ability to connect with kids that are in need of positive influence via both music and sports is definitely a benefit. I love Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart as much as anyone, yet listened to some Eminem as well before basketball games. The cards are an added vehicle of the connection with interest in sports, as they are aware that the cards were mine.

[granite75]

I placed a box of 200 or so 2015 Topps commons in my classroom inviting students to take a few. The cards were a hit, gone within the first 2 weeks.

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

[Eggoman]

I would be MORE THAN HAPPY to send what I can to whomever(s) can put them to such GREAT use! Please send an e-mail or PM to me - rzayatz@roadrunner.com with an address to where I can send 'em!

THANKS!

[npa589]

Hey everyone, sorry if I didn't get back to you. If that is the case, please send me an e-mail to npa589@gmail.com

The donations already have been phenomenal. If I didn't personally thank you......thank you. Here is a picture of what I set up - certainly not fancy by any means - decoration isn't my forte!

The butcher paper in the background is for them to "Leave their mark" as WRES Hall of Famers. They sign their name if they earn a card individually.

[npa589]

Mr. Lemo.igne, Mr. Dan.zi, Mr. Miran.da, and Leon --- your cards all arrived. Thank you so much! The students are pumped so see that table overflowing with cards.

I'm now going to work on a worksheet (4 on one piece of paper) that asks them to do brief research on each player. Already had one of the students that plays baseball go home and research Joe DiMaggio. That was from one of the 2001 Upper Deck cards that Mr. Frank Burk.ett supplied. Thanks Frank!