Kona Ice of Selma and Prattville is doing their part to give back to teachers this school year.

The snow cone business will be adopting a classroom and providing the teacher with their choice of classroom needs.

“This year through corporate, we’re doing adopt a classroom,” said Glenn McPhillips, owner of Selma and Prattville Kona Ice. “Part of the sales of every color changing cup goes to a classroom and this year our theme is the ‘Big Give.’”

McPhillips said they want to provide the teacher with something they can use every day with the children.

“[We want] to give something more than like a fundraiser check,” he said. “We want to give something tangible, something the teacher would need.”

Kona announced the contest Monday on their Facebook page, Kona Ice of Selma/Prattville, with a list of instructions on how to nominate a teacher.

Each person can only nominate one teacher in the contest, and the teacher with the most votes will be awarded the item or items of their choice for their classroom.

As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 92 comments and 66 shares on the post and McPhillips said it had reached more than 5,000 people.

He is hoping people will continue to share the post and have their friends vote for the teacher of their choice too.

“We’re just trying to raise awareness that the average teacher spends at least $600 of their own money out of pocket for their classroom,” McPhillips said. “We thought it would just be fun to put a contest on there for back to school and see who gets the most votes and that teacher, we’ll meet with them and see what their needs are and see what we can get.”

McPhillips said it’s exciting to be able to do something for a teacher in the community and give back to those that work with children every day.

“We’ve done some contests in the past, but this seems to be the biggest response we’ve had,” he said.  “I always have fun when we get to involve the students and teachers whether we come and give a party, or we give away a class party in contests, but this is certainty a lot better because maybe we can something that they’ll get to use every day in the class.”

The contest will run through Monday, and a winner will be announced soon after the votes have been tallied.