PRESQUE ISLE – Enola Boyce and Pre-K students in the SAD 1 Pre-K Program recently won the “Care Where You Are” Sweepstakes, a national sweepstakes sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs, and donated their prize – 500 books from Scholastic – to the Pediatric Units at The Aroostook Medical Center and Cary Medical Center, ACAP, Battered Women’s Shelter, Circle of Learning, Presque Isle Police Department, St. Mary’s Homeless Shelter and the First Book program.
The prizewinners were participants in Scholastic Book Clubs’ ClassroomsCare program – a philanthropic literacy initiative that encourages reading by asking classrooms across the country to read 100 books, and in turn, Scholastic Book Clubs would donate up to 1 million books to kids in need.
Boyce’s class was one of only 200 across the nation to win the prize out of almost 16,000 classes that entered the sweepstakes. On March 17, the Pre-K students spent the day delivering the books to the charities of their choice.
ClassroomsCare is designed to empower students around the country to make a difference in the world. The program distributes more than 1 million books each year. This year, with the addition of 100,000 books being donated to countless organizations through the winners of the “Care Where You Are” Sweepstakes, ClassroomsCare is extending its reach even further.
“Thank you to the parents who helped our children participate in the ClassroomsCare program last fall by reading with their children at home and sending in the forms telling me how many books were read,” said Boyce. “Just by doing that, we helped children in San Diego receive free books from Scholastic Book Clubs. Our students are very excited to put books in the hands of children in our own community!”
The ClassroomsCare initiative is open to all classrooms nationwide through Scholastic Book Club catalogues and the Scholastic Web site. Teachers, along with their students, can log onto www.scholastic.com/ClassroomsCare to track their reading progress online and choose charities where they would like books donated. Teachers can also download lesson plans and activities to help craft a character education curriculum aimed at empowering students to make a difference in their communities.
More than 1 million classrooms nationwide have participated in ClassroomsCare since its inception in 2002, and more than 8 million books have been donated by Scholastic Book Clubs as part of the program. In addition to encouraging increased reading in the classroom, the program has helped respond to tragedies and natural disasters such as the tsunami in Indonesia and Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast, by sending books to those affected.
Contributed photo
KELLY O’NEIL from Pines Health Services in Presque Isle poses with Enola Boyce’s morning Pre-Kindergarten class at the SAD 1 Pre-K Program recently as they donated books they won through the “Care Where You Are” sweepstakes, a contest sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs, to several local charities.
Contributed photo
PEDIATRIC PATIENTS will have a more enjoyable experience when waiting to see the doctor, thanks to the generosity of Enola Boyce’s class. The Pre-K class from SAD 1 was one of 200 classes in the country to win the “Care Where You Are” sweepstakes, a contest sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs. The class decided to donate the 500 books they won to several local charities, including The Aroostook Medical Center. The books will be placed in the waiting room at North Street Pediatrics when the new office opens in June.
