(WHTM) — Teachers typically spend a lot of their own money preparing for the upcoming school year.

However, many teachers have started turning to Amazon Wish Lists as a way to help them out financially.

“I’ve been teaching for a long time,” said Michelle Angeles, a Kindergarten teacher at Steelton-Highspire Elementary School in Dauphin County.

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Angeles knows firsthand how much money teachers spend on different supplies each school year.

“I’m old school, I typically get everything I need,” Angeles added. “I don’t know how much I spent this year on my own. I can tell you last year I spent over $7,500 and on our IRS taxes we only get a credit of about $300 for that.”

So, like many teachers, Angeles turned to her community for some support.

“I created this Amazon Wish List,” Angeles said. “A lot of my coworkers do it, a lot of my friends do it.”

An Amazon Wish List can act as a registry for teachers.

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Angeles told abc27 News she was overwhelmed with the support she received.

“The night before school started, I’d been in my classroom really late, and I was upset about something. And as I turned in my driveway, I saw this mountain of gifts and packages from Amazon. I didn’t know they were gifts,” she said. “I was like, what did I order? Because, you know, you always order stuff off Amazon. And as I started opening them, opening them, I’m going to cry now. I started to cry because I got all these really neat things from people that I would have never imagined.”

Angeles says no one is obligated to buy anything off a teachers Amazon Wish List, but if someone does, “You’re not buying things from me. You’re buying things for these 18 adorable, little kinder friends that I have. I appreciate it so much and my little friends appreciate it, too.”

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