Fortes Elementary School students, from left, Alicet Diaz, Yeneisi Cabrera, Arislenny Bonilla, Iris Echevarria and Estheisi Cabrera stand by Mayor David N. Cicilline as he announces a new program, DonorsChoose, which allows donors to choose particular schools and classrooms to give specific products.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — A social studies teacher in Brooklyn, N.Y., wants 22 tickets to take her students to The Lion King. A biology teacher in Flushing, N.Y., wants to buy a set of carnivorous plants for her 10th-grade science class. A fifth-grade teacher wants to introduce her students to farm-fresh food at the Union Square Farmers Market in Manhattan.

What do all of these projects have in common? They were paid for by one or more “citizen philanthropists,” individual donors who don’t have the resources of a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet but who want to make a difference in small but meaningful ways. Multiple donors can even contribute to one project.

Yesterday, the founder of DonorsChoose.org, Charles Best, announced the arrival of the Web-based giving program at the Fortes Elementary School, where he was joined by Mayor David N. Cicilline, Supt. Donnie Evans and Providence Teachers Union President Steve Smith.

Best, a Yale University graduate, was a novice social studies teacher in the Bronx, N.Y., when he dreamed up the idea of using the Web to connect small donors to worthy public school projects.

“It was my first year of teaching,” Best said, “and we were all griping about not having enough money to do our projects. I figured there must be some way to fund a classroom project and then see how the money was being spent.”

Best, who was living at home with his parents at the time, had his students brainstorm how the program would work. A donor logs on to the Web site and then uses key words to identify a project of interest. Perhaps, the donor loves gardening. Using the words gardening and Providence, the site will pull up a list of school projects that involve both key words.

DonorsChoose volunteers screen each proposal before it is posted on-line and verify that the teacher and the project meet the program’s eligibility requirements. The organization buys the materials and ships the items to the school, along with a disposable camera and a stamped envelope in which to enclose student feedback. Students write thank-you notes to the donors, and DonorsChoose develops the photos, compiles the letters and mails them to the donors.

“This is a way that everyone can be a philanthropist and get the same joy of giving as a Bill Gates,” Best said yesterday. “I figured that all these people needed was to find a classroom project that spoke to them.”

The company operates by taking a commission for each project or program that donors finance.

Inspired by requests from around the country, Donors-Choose decided to go national, which means that the Web site is now open to any public school in the United States. Best selected Providence to announce the program’s national push because Cicilline was so enthusiastic about the project after hearing about it from City Councilor Cliff Wood.

“Cicilline got it,” Best said, adding that he met with the mayor several months ago and, after witnessing his enthusiasm, decided to make a concerted effort in Providence, along with Boston and New York City.

The Rhode Island Foundation has already promised $30,000 to get the program off the ground, and Best said that one way the seed money might be spent is to buy gift certificates and give them out to potential donors as a way to jump-start the effort.

Cicilline said, “I encourage people in the business community to go to this Web site. You can choose to support a class, a school, a field trip, even a book. You can make a pledge of $10 and up. Every donor gets a camera with pictures of the project. What you get in return is a vivid image of what your donation bought.”

Evans said that teachers are on the front lines every day and they need all the help that they can get to move student achievement forward.

“At a time when our resources are scarce,” he said, “Donors-Choose provides our schools with crucial resources.”

Since its inception seven years ago, DonorsChoose has raised more than $13 million in donations for more than 600,000 students in 10 states. At Fortes Elementary School, where the program actually began prior to yesterday’s announcement, a classroom of second-  and third-graders just received several new DVD players and a bunch of new reading books.

lborg@projo.com