With a little help from Twitter: cash poor, librarian Keisa Williams turns to donorschoose.org and social media.(Tech Knowledge)

A paltry materials budget got you down? Keisa Williams knows the feeling well. So the school librarian at the K-5 Monarch Academy in Oakland, CA, turned to DonorsChoose.org with her cause. And the good people of the Web responded.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"I always thought it was too much work and I wouldn't have time for that," says Williams. "But once you figure out how to tell your story, you just tell it over and over again. You'll get funded."

Williams is a seasoned veteran of budget cuts. For the past four years, she's had zero funding for library materials. She tried DonorsChoose.org for the first time last year, thinking she had nothing to lose in trying to acquire computer mice for 30 kindergarten students who didn't know how to use the track pads in the school's computer lab.

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