{"id":368278,"date":"2026-10-08T22:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T22:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368278\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T22:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T22:20:09","slug":"dinosaur-masks-easels-1000-top-hats-inside-nycs-free-store-for-teachers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368278\/","title":{"rendered":"Dinosaur masks, easels, 1,000 top hats: Inside NYC\u2019s free store for teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published<\/a> on Oct. 8 by The City Reporter. Sign up here<\/a> to get the latest stories from The City Reporter delivered to you each morning.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become a ritual for many New York City teachers: Head to a 35,000-square-foot warehouse on Northern Boulevard in Queens, take the elevator to the third floor, grab a shopping cart and don\u2019t leave until it\u2019s filled to the brim with classroom supplies \u2014 all for free. <\/p>\n

Every first Thursday of the month, the city\u2019s Department of Cultural Affairs treats teachers to the spree, courtesy of a little-known city program called Materials for the Arts, or MFTA. While the city Department of Education sets aside money for teachers\u2019 choice allotments \u2014 or reimbursements for each teacher to get back what they spend annually on their classroom supplies \u2014 that money doesn\u2019t always go as far as the students need, some teachers say. <\/p>\n

Teachers can get reimbursed up to $220 this school year, the United Federation of Teachers union announced last month. The purchasing period ends on Jan. 8, 2027, while the so-called \u201clate-night\u201d shopping sprees \u2014 between 4 and 7 p.m. \u2014 run through the end of the school year in June. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s led some teachers to gather money to buy supplies via crowdfunding platforms, such as GoFundMe<\/a> and DonorsChoose<\/a>. Others depend on MFTA\u2019s teachers\u2019 shopping sprees. The materials come from local theaters\u2019 and schools\u2019 old set designs and props, manufacturers\u2019 discarded products and individual donors. MFTA accepts donations<\/a> from the public every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with a loading dock on site for large drop-offs. <\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

Every weekday morning, Chalkbeat New York is bringing thousands of subscribers the news on public schools and education policy that they need to start their day. Sign up for our free newsletter to join them.<\/p>\n

Alain Codio, who teaches high schoolers at an architecture- and design-focused school in Williamsburg, said the program is especially useful for afterschool programs that help kids experiment with the arts. While shopping for his school\u2019s upcoming production of \u201cShrek The Musical,\u201d Codio told The City Reporter he\u2019s come to MFTA for almost 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery school has a certain budget. So for us to be able to run almost 20-something programs in our school, and for Materials to provide a little bit of mixture for every project \u2026 it\u2019s less stressful,\u201d Codio added. <\/p>\n

For the school\u2019s manufacturing club, Codio picked up tools for model making and laser engraving; for the game design club, PlayStation games; for the school\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day sip-and-paint (\u201capple cider, of course\u201d), paint and easels. <\/p>\n

\u2018Democratizing art supplies\u2019<\/p>\n

The warehouse is lined with yellow buckets full of knickknacks, including office supplies, arts and crafts and, toward the back, couches and tables. The warehouse isn\u2019t open to the public, but serves New York City public school teachers from more than 1,800 schools, and some arts nonprofits, at no cost. <\/p>\n

For some, that means paper and pencils. But last Thursday, plastic dinosaur masks \u2014 the kind that smell like latex and go over your whole head \u2014 were a hot commodity among the city\u2019s public school educators. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne fun thing is when we get something, sometimes we get 1,000 of it, so we don\u2019t just get one top hat,\u201d said John Cloud Kaiser, MFTA education and gallery director. \u201cWe get 1,000 top hats.\u201d <\/p>\n

In one cart on the check-out line, more than a dozen dinosaur heads lay stacked next to six rolls of wrapping paper and a pop-up book about architecture. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u200b\u200bWe really believe in this idea of democratizing art supplies,\u201d Kaiser said. \u201cSo this idea that everything is an art supply, and in that way, everyone\u2019s an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Thompson, who teaches 11th- and 12th-graders on the Upper West Side, said he once snagged candelabras for a teaching unit on Gothic literature where the class read \u201cFrankenstein.\u201d On another run, he loaded his car up with fake trees to use as props for his school\u2019s production of \u201cMacbeth.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was lucky enough to learn about it in my first year, and I\u2019m in year 10 now, so I\u2019ve been praising it ever since,\u201d Thompson told The City Reporter. His cart was loaded up with copy paper and index cards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on Oct. 8 by The City Reporter. Sign up here to get the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4146,9,24,55,54,56,63,99006],"class_list":["post-368278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chalkbeat","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-the-city-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}