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To honor the creative efforts teachers have made to maneuver their ever-shifting learning environments and keep students engaged this past year, Sonic Drive-In donated $1.5 million to teacher requests on national education nonprofit site DonorsChoose.

As part of Sonic’s ongoing Limeades for Learning initiative, Charlotte County teacher Carmen Tucker received a combined donation of $80 for her program that helped meet her $249 goal.

Tucker, a teacher at Eureka Elementary School, said teachers are doing the best they can in an ever-changing scenario.

‘Teachers are working in the buildings with children rotating in and out, creating lessons in Google Classroom, making videos, making paper/pencil work for everyone, contacting parents daily, and trying to plan ahead for whatever may come,” Tucker said.

Tucker’s project, included raising funds for laminating sheets and an electric hole punch.

“I have been making individual games, sight word cards, and manipulatives and laminating them so that they are easy to clean, and each student has their own set to use,” Tucker said. “I am also using binders to organize individual work for the week. An electric hole punch helps make putting these together simpler.”

Through Limeades for Learning, Sonic has donated more than $19 million to public school teachers, helping more than 36,000 teachers and impacting nearly 7.4 million students in public schools nationwide since 2009.