Dozens of stores in The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® chain have chosen to participate in the Adopt-A-Classroom program–providing direct, tangible resources to neighborhood schools and positively impacting more than 25,000 children.

The process for adopting a classroom is as follows: each participating The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® store selects a teacher and his/her classroom from the local community, then donates $500 to Adopt-A-Classroom. Adopt-A-Classroom then creates a merchandise credit of $500 for the specific classroom The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® store has chosen. The teacher orders resources to enrich the classroom and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® store gets an invoice that shows how the donation was spent. Throughout the school year, the teacher, students and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® employees correspond with each other, sharing e-mails, letters and art work.

“The continuation of this program is a perfect fit for our company,” Ellen Belot, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® community relations manager who initialized the partnership with Adopt-A-Classroom, says in a press release. “It empowers teachers with tangible resources and is especially close to our team members’ hearts.”