Posted October 27, 2008

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee -- It was Christmas in July. 

That's what it felt like to McBrien Elementary Principal Madeline Bell after Miller & Martin PLLC donated 41 computers to the school.

"My teachers are thrilled," Bell said. "We have one computer lab and most of the computers in classrooms were dead. So we had a serious need and no money."

In this story Santa Claus is Travis McDonough, a Miller & Martin attorney, who serves as an Education Emissary for the Chattanooga Area Chamber's Education Initiative.

The Education Initiative is an effort to generate partnerships between business and education and promote widespread community support for public schools.

Through the Education Emissary program the Chamber enlists the assistance of local business leaders who call on representatives of the business and education communities. Their goal is to discover how business and industry can make contributions to the public schools and to help educators understand what businesses are seeking in potential employees.

Last summer McDonough visited Bell at McBrien and learned how the school had tapped every possible resource to gather books and other materials to build an outstanding reading program.

A few weeks after the visit, Bell contacted McDonough to discuss the school's need for computers. "Our students could get on computers at most once a week," she said.  "And the majority of them don't have computers at home. Sixty-eight percent of our children are Title I."

McDonough brought the school's need for technology to the attention of his firm's leadership and arranged for 41 Dell computers to be donated to the school.

"Business thrives when public schools succeed," McDonough said. "Miller & Martin recognizes its obligation to support our public education system in every way we can. It's an honor to work with the professionals who educate our children, and any business that joins this initiative will be just as amazed as I am by the efforts of these dedicated public servants."

Bell made sure the computers met the requirements of the Hamilton County Department of Education and called Miller & Martin to accept the generous offer. McDonough was out of the country at the time, so Bell hopped in her Toyota truck and picked up the computers herself. "The county gave me some monitors and I bought the software."

The computers will serve the school's upper grades - fifth, fourth and third. "I wanted every teacher in the upper grades to have a center of three to four computers.

Recently the school purchased a literacy software that students can use in workstations in the classrooms.  This will build individual literacy skills, as well.

"This gift opens all kinds of doors -- helping them build literacy and math skills and learning to conduct research," Bell says. "It opens a whole new world."