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Local school hopes community will help with book donations

Sep 23, 2016 | 12:26 PM

St. Mary’s School is about to receive more books in its library with the Indigo Adopt a School Program.

The school’s librarian Christine Sawarin applied for the school to take part in Indigo’s 2015 Adopt a School program last year to raise money for new books. The school was chosen and came in eighth in the province. The school was chosen to participate in it again this year.

The program works a bit differently this year. Instead of just fundraising, people are able to choose different schools online and donate books through Indigo’s website. Along with donating a book, someone can share a story about the school and if Indigo chooses to highlight that story, the school will receive an additional free book.

Sawarin said the Adopt a School program is important because getting kids to start reading at an early age can help them later on in life.

“It is all for the students. That’s why we do what we do. We want them to become lifelong readers,” Sawarin said. ‘If we can get them reading when they’re young they will be better in school and turn into more productive adults.”

Sawarin said she uses the Pokémon craze to get kids into reading. St. Mary’s gives out “Poké Points” through its accelerated reader program. Students read a book and then go onto the program and complete a quiz. The more quizzes they complete, the more points they get and the more prizes they receive. Prizes range from Pokémon book markers to a $100 Indigo gift card.

“Sometimes if they do well enough we will let them wear a hat on Fridays or chew gum in class, they especially love doing that,” Sarawin said.

 

Greg Higgins is battlefordsNOW’s city municipal affairs and health reporter. He can be reached at ghiggins@jpbg.ca or tweet him @realgreghiggins.