Teachers Gift | Imamother

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:26 am

amother SandyBrown wrote:

wow. can I please be your daughter's teacher?! I am impressed with your generosity of spirit, OP.

my husband has been a rebbi for many years. From some students, he gets nothing, from many he has received between 18 and 100. And from a handful of talmidim over the years he has received between 180 and 360.
Once he was given a check for 750 which was highly unusual. But he had been tutoring that student for free for 10-15 mins before school started each day for the 3 weeks before chanukah, to help him catch up on learning that he had missed due to an extended absence. He had refused payment. So we assumed this was their way of paying for that tutoring. My husband discovered later that this boy's family was very very comfortably off. so he didn't feel bad about taking that big gift.

If a random students parent were to gift him $500 he would be very surprised, but as long as they were known to be comfortably off he would feel apprecaitve and not feel bad.
The only time he was given a gift of 1000, was before we made a simcha last year, and a particularly wealthy student's parents gave him a check for $1000, with a mazal tov card saying words to the effect of 'mazal tov, let us share in your simcha! we appreacite what you do for our son!'

So, bottom line, if you are known to be comfortable, then a gift of $500 is great. More than that, and a teacher might feel rather weird about it.
But how about an envelope with $500 visa giftcard and $500 giftcard to your local kosher supermarket? somehow it feels less weird to get a big gift if its in the form of giftcards. ..

That was my question is there any gift that we can give that would be universally needed like money in the grocery assuming they have welfare so maybe they don't pay for groceries... any ideas?

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:30 am

amother Grape wrote:

I also live in Lakewood and can afford to give my teachers a nice amount. I feel like why is it normal to give my sons rabbi $400-$500 a few times a year but my girl teachers it’s considered weird. I started giving them $150+ a few times but I feel funny doing more. My school has a simcha and yt fund for the teachers so I give a lot there.

after talking to a couple of teachers in a well to do school in Lakewood $500 gift a few times a year is seen like by 2-3 children a class and once in a while there is 1 kid that can give $1000 a few times a year they were telling me that they don't know that they would think it is weird a big sum of 25k if struggling trying to figure this out as out here on the forum it sounds like everyone thinks it would be inappropriate

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:33 am

amother Alyssum wrote:

I'm going to be extremely blunt here. There is something extremely off-putting and off sounding with your entire question. You keep saying you don't want to flaunt your money but it sounds like you're flaunting it right here.

From the way you've been asking, it sounds like you have 25,000 to give to every one of your kids teachers ( I'm assuming if you have at least one kid there's two teachers). If that's the case, don't you think it would be extremely helpful and not 'watered down' to give $500-$1,000 to every teacher in your kids' school? Especially if people who teach in a well-to-do school and not a regular school, only get that amount from one or two parents. If you don't have enough money to give that to the teachers in your kids schools, then stop asking about dollar amounts that are obviously out of your reach.

If it's about 'helping teachers' why does it matter which teacher it is?

I saw that you also posted it on the Lakewood Scoop.
Seriously?
Why don't you direct this question at the rav that gave you this instruction in the first place?

that would make it watered down and my daughter teacher can really use the money and she is the one we owe Hakoras Hatov to this year big difference if they get 25k or 2k and I don't think I am flaunting with a anonymous post here ...

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:35 am

amother DarkViolet wrote:

Did you not get enough responses here? I see your exact same letter on the Lakewood scoop. Do you have an agenda of trying to sound like you have alot of money?? There's plenty of responses here to have satisfied your question.

nope husband sent letter there as I wasn't coming with a solid answer how to do this
I thought I was going to get either a great gift that she for sure can use that would help them financially (best) or everyone coming with the same numbers but seems there are 2 different types of responses either not more than 150-250 or go all out there so we are very confused

amother

Alyssum

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:48 am

amother OP wrote:

So now that you've announced it to the entire Lakewood, I'm sure when the teacher gets her enormous check she's going to be extremely embarrassed because she's going to know that her students family knows she's in debt.

There are plenty of ways to figure out how to give money to people without publicly embarrassing them.
You could have asked your rav to reached out to her rav and given the money through that. The rav in my shul will distribute money to people in need through our shuls fund and no one knows about it.
You could have tried to find a way to give it through the husbands work or kollel.
You could have mailed the check anonymously! You could have tried to find out if she has any tuition that she needs covered and sent it to pay for it. The school would have been happy to say that she is qualified for a scholarship or something similar.

You know how you don't give money anonymously & with kindness? By posting it online for everyone to see and if we hadn't realized until now that it was in Lakewood, we all definitely know at this point.

You should ask the Lakewood Scoop to take down the letter. And maybe this thread.

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:51 am

amother Alyssum wrote:

for that reason when my husband sent letter to the scoop didn't write that we know one of the teachers can really use the money just that our Rov said we should give our money there...

amother

DarkViolet

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:55 am

amother Alyssum wrote:

I'm speculating that the reason she doesn't want to ask her rav and do it anonymously Is because she wants the teacher to know it's from her.

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:57 am

amother Alyssum wrote:

I was wondering the same thing as they suddenly have 25,000 to give to one teacher but they've never been giving the teachers $500 to $1,000 each year with so much wealth?

why all this bashing (because of this I will explain what we did until now we gave $250 Chanukah $500 purim and $500 pesach and then again $500 at the end of the year and was told by a teacher that there are always about 2-3 kids a class that do this so we knew we weren't flaunting...)

please stop the bashing

amother

Firethorn

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 7:59 am

amother OP wrote:

we know what we can do know and hopefully with Hashems help we can do Purim again...
(are you saying $500 max or you are just telling me to split throughout the year)

I know someone who gave $1000 to the rebbe of their son and he told them thank you but he couldn’t accept such a large gift.

amother

DarkViolet

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 8:03 am

amother OP wrote:

So do the same thing. End of discussion. You said yourself right here that you know you weren't flaunting with this amount.

amother

Cognac

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 8:10 am

Im just thrown it out there that excessive checks or cash can cause tax (or program) issues.
If a 20k deposit causes the family to be thrown off JerseyCare and HUD, then you really haven't helped them.

You seem to have your sources and snooping about the family. I would look to find out where their kids go to school, and anonymously pay off their tuition.

Or you can mail anonymously a few hundred dollars gift cards to a grocery store. Most families can appreciate $500 a month to Evergreen or Gourmet Glatt and over the year, that's a good $5000.

amother

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 8:14 am

amother Cognac wrote:

thanks for the insight
assuming that if on welfare money to the grocery won't help
Having a very hard time snooping their childrens school we approached doesn't want to do it as what will be next year... or after this stops they will feel they are on scholarship and don't have to pay tuition... so we are at a dead end anyone have any ideas?

amother

Cognac

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 8:19 am

amother OP wrote:

I don't assume that grocery money won't be appreciated.

amother

Jade

Fri, Nov 25 2022, 8:20 am

I am a teacher. I’m going anonymous, so I will be very open and tell you that I am a very well regarded and super devoted teacher, and put in many, many hours behind the scenes to help my students. I struggle mightily financially.
I once got a call from a local Rav who told me he had a large check ($3,000) from a grateful parent parent who wanted to remain anonymous. Initially I thought that maybe it was tzedakah and the Rabbi told me it came from a parent to be kind. But it came with a typed note thanking me for specific things that I do, so I’m 99%sure it was prob from a parent.
OP, maybe you can do something similar? Like give a generous donation with your name attached as you usually would, and send the rest anonymously, but with a thank you?