When disaster strikes a community, we see teachers scramble to meet their students’ needs as learning is disrupted, classroom supplies and equipment are damaged and students are displaced.
Grants from AdoptAClassroom.org’s Natural Disaster Fund support educators across the country in response to disasters impacting their classrooms, because learning can’t stop.
What is the Disaster Relief Fund?
AdoptAClassroom.org’s Disaster Relief Fund supports educators and schools impacted by major disasters like hurricanes, fires or a pandemic. We work directly with schools to provide flexible grants for educators in recovering areas, letting teachers get the supplies they need, when they need them.
Read more about our partnerships with schools in California and Hawaii in the wake of natural disasters.
While districts often have insurance to cover the cost of damages to school buildings, these policies usually don’t include the classroom materials that teachers have spent their own money on. Our Natural Disaster Fund is here to help teachers like Mark replace some of the essential items that they’ve lost and meet students’ needs in times of crisis.
“The Palisades Fire reduced my classroom to ash. Your generous donation helped me regain some of what was lost and rebuild the positive learning environment that my class is known for.”
– Mark, Palisades Charter Elementary
Past recipients of our Natural Disaster Fund grants have used their funding to purchase everything from technology for distance learning to food, clothing and other daily essentials for their students. With up to a year to spend their funds, teachers have the flexibility to order supplies as new classroom needs emerge.
How the Natural Disaster Fund Helps Teachers
The Natural Disaster Fund gives teachers an easy way to start immediately replacing damaged or destroyed learning materials. With AdoptAClassroom.org funds, no cash or checks exchange hands, simplifying the process of ordering and getting supplies to classrooms.
Grant recipients can use their AdoptAClassroom.org funds to order classroom supplies through our online marketplace of 20+ education vendors. AdoptAClassroom.org’s Teacher Services Team can also assist with ordering some supplies not currently available in the marketplace.
Before an order is placed, AdoptAClassroom.org’s staff works with teachers or administrators to determine a safe location for the classroom supplies to be delivered – usually another school or district office. Since items only arrive as ordered, storage isn’t an issue either.
Case Study: Responding to the California Wildfires
In January 2025, the Palisades and Eaton wildfires destroyed homes and schools in Los Angeles. Our team quickly began working to find and connect with the educators most urgently in need of support for disaster relief.
By the end of February 2025, AdoptAClassroom.org had provided disaster relief grants to impacted teachers already registered with our organization. A second round of grants followed three months later.
To reach educators who weren’t already registered with our organization, AdoptAClassroom.org partnered with administrators at Eliot Arts Magnet Academy and Palisades Charter High School. Together, our teams handled the registration process for all of the schools’ impacted teachers, avoiding adding another task to educators’ already overflowing plates.
At the schools’ request, Natural Disaster Fund grants were distributed to teachers at Eliot Arts Magnet Academy and Palisades Charter High School in August and September of 2025 for the new school year.
“I want to extend my deepest gratitude to you for your generous donations of books and classroom supplies following the devastating Palisades fires. You’ve helped restore a community, one page, one pencil, one student at a time.”
– Shiran, Palisades Charter High School
Learn how to partner with AdoptAClassroom.org’s Natural Disaster Fund by contacting our Teacher Services Team at [email protected]. Or, read more about the other grants that we have available for educators.