Teaching before Christmas break can be tough when considering that your students have so little. One teacher was able to offer her students and school so much simply by winning a contest that involved little effort.

A recent Boston Globe article shared that Nicole Bollerman, a second-year teacher at UP Academy in Dorchester (a Boston borough), Mass., entered a Capital One contest on a whim.

"Just before Thanksgiving, she saw an ad for a contest — the #WishForOthers campaign — inviting people to submit a wish the sponsor company could grant," the article said. "What did she have to lose? Her short essay read, in part: 'I’m a third-grade teacher in a low-income, high-risk elementary school in Boston, MA. 'My #wish for others is that my voracious, adorable, hard-working, loving scholars all leave for their December break with a book in their hand.'"

The article said that "a remarkable chain of events followed." First, according to The Globe, "Capital One, the contest sponsor, agreed to send all her kids books. Then, Bollerman, who is 26, won one of the grand prizes — $150,000 — and quickly announced she would give it all to the school."

“I never thought about keeping it for myself,” she said. “I won it for the kids, and that’s where it’s going to go.”

With Dorchester teacher’s prize, the article said, "the pupils win."

Bollerman, the article said, "was one of the teachers brought in to turn the school around. A graduate of Stonehill College, she had been teaching at a charter school in Washington, D.C., for three years, but was itching to return to Massachusetts."

“We just loved everything we saw from her,” said Adkeem Jackson, one of the school’s administrators.

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Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor