The brightest budding bookworms from Fireside School read more books than an entire library through their third-annual Read-a-Thon event.
From Jan. 26 to Feb. 12, students and staff read a grand total of 840,000 minutes. This equates to about 583 days spent by faculty and staff who flipped through thousands of pages between the two weeks.
Assistant principal and leader behind the Read-a-tThon, Tara Sly, said the event was a huge success and although the event ran two weeks rather than the whole month, the school smashed through their original goal of 500,000 minutes read.
“The kids and staff really took it in stride and ran with it,” Sly said. “They set their own goals, classrooms had inter-hallway competitions with each other, [and] kids were having many friendly competitions with each other.”
As a grand finale for this year’s event, Sly said the older students worked alongside students in younger classes to form a reading chain that was made up of around 850 people. Another highlight by the entire Fireside student body and faculty was the amount of money they raised throughout the Read-a-Thon.
“We raised over $14,000,” Sly said. “Thanks to the very generous community partners and sponsors, we were able to give out draw prizes as students met their reading goals.”
Through sponsors in the community Sly said that more than 100 prizes were given to students for their efforts. All funds raised through this year’s event will be dedicated to resources to help students foster and grow their reading skills.
“We will use that to add new literacy resources, book sets, and literacy kits, so that we can support the literacy programs that we have going on, so kids can have more choices in their reading groups that they’re doing in class,” she said. “And just so that there’s more opportunities for students to engage with, overall.”
The super reader leaders for this year’s Read-a-Thon include Laura Wright, who read around 5,400 minutes, and Liam Blackwell who read approximately 900 minutes.
This year’s event even hosted several local leaders including RVS superintendent Greg Luterbach, associate, associate superintendent Murray Besenski, director of organizational learning Sharon Cronin, area directors Ryan Reed and Sandy McDuffe, and Fireside School constable Nathan Moore.
“It was really amazing and many of the were at one or the other celebration assembly, and some of them presented awards to kids as well, just to bring that connection full-circle,” she said.
As a popular event for the entire school, Sly said the students and staff are already preparing for next year’s event.
“I think as a school, one of our foundational cornerstones is reading and literacy,” Sly said. “This is a fun way to promote it and really show our love for books, our belief in the power of reading, and a way for not only the school, but [also] for parents and families to be involved in a way for our larger learning community.”
As a high school English teacher by trade, Sly said it warms her heart to see the community come together for the shared love of reading.
“I’m really proud of our school,” Sly said. “This would not be possible to run without the staff and students taking it on. I’m not surprised that they exceeded our goal and that it came alive. We have such amazing students and staff that do the things they’re passionate about.
“They brought this to life and made it happen. So, I’m really pleased with the results.”
Sly would like to give a special thanks to all the sponsors of the event including The Friends of Fireside Society, Found Books & Shop, Cochrane Movie House, Calbridge Group, Bow Valley High School Peforming Arts, MacKay’s Ice Cream, Calaway Park, Spray Lake Sawmills Family Recreation Centre, The Messy Moose Art Studio, Tim Hortons (Cochrane), Fireside McDonald’s, Shredz Shop Cochrane, Rebel Comics, reet beet Designs (Cochrane), Holliday Collective (Cochrane), the Gillies Family, the Fossheim Family, Mr. Petterson, Mrs. Hamilton, J. Neven Pugh, and the Sly Family.
