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Reese Witherspoon, a beloved Nashville resident, is supporting teachers in her hometown through DonorsChoose, a nonprofit program that helps connect teachers with public donations.

Through her project, Witherspoon hopes to support teachers in the Metro Nashville Public School system by helping provide new school equipment and materials. According to her DonorsChoose website, Witherspoon has funded 144 projects, helped nearly 17,000 students, served 56 schools, and supported 126 teachers.

This isn’t the first time Witherspoon has attempted to show her support for her educators. In early April, during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Draper James, Witherspoon’s fashion line, offered free dresses to teachers who were working tirelessly to adapt to an unprecedented way of learning. While it was well-intentioned, the misleading advertisement went terribly wrong.

According to the company’s Instagram page, “Dear Teachers: We want to say thank you. During quarantine, we see you working harder than ever to educate our children. To show our gratitude, Draper James would like to give teachers a free dress.” To receive a dress, teachers were simply instructed to provide identification and fill out an online application form.

The company, which only had 250 dresses to donate, was overwhelmed when they found that nearly one million teachers applied. In an effort to do some damage control, the company attempted to tell the applicants that the mass giveaway was actually a raffle. To no avail, teachers everywhere were thoroughly disappointed at the company’s disastrous false advertising. They did, however, fulfill their promise to give at least 250 of the applicants a free dress.

Witherspoon’s latest educational philanthropic endeavor has seemed to be a saving grace thus far as it provides a more widely assessable way to support local teachers.

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