Not only can recent Harrington Middle School graduates add “diploma” to their resume, they can also add that they are authors of children’s books.
For the past three years, the school has been teaching students the process of being an author through the BookMates program.
For more than 13 years, BookMates has been a program of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Catholic Jewish Commission. It began with adult volunteer readers providing one-on-one reading time with young, disadvantaged students, but three years ago, BookMates recognized that middle school-aged students can also get involved and created the “Young Authors” section.
When “Young Authors” was created, Shevrin was hopeful the benefits would be two-fold. Helping Harrington students develop a love of reading and writing as well as giving less fortunate students an opportunity to be mentored.
According to Shevrin, the response from Harrington students has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The student response has been incredible,” BookMates director Rhonda Shevrin said. “Both teachers and students have come to look forward to it every year.”
Harrington’s connection to the program started when Mt. Laurel resident Debbie Hochberg and her daughter were looking for a volunteer project to be a part of. After discovering BookMates online, Hochberg held a book drive to collect donations of books that could in turn be donated to schools.
Dropping off the collected books is what pushed Hochberg to get more involved with the program.
“The kids were just so thankful, so grateful for the donations. They sang songs and thanked us,” Hochberg said. “It was extremely moving and emotional to see how much the donation impacted them.”
Hochberg told Harrington teacher Sandy Poulton and superintendent Antoinette Rath about what she had seen and asked if the school could get involved.
Since 2011, Harrington students have been using time in their language arts classes to explore what goes into writing children’s books. Based on their research and with their teachers’ help, the students authored, illustrated and put together their own creative stories.
BookMates is sponsored by Townsend Press but would not be able to exist without the help of those in the community, Shevrin said.
“We wouldn’t be able to continue the program without the help of the Ellis Family Charitable Foundation,” Shevrin said. “They paid to bus the students to and from Camden these last two years.”
Shevrin also spoke to Harrington’s teachers being an integral part of the program’s success.
“Without teachers who are willing to do this, the program doesn’t happen. They really work hard and make sacrifices, and I am just so impressed by them,” Shevrin said.
Originally, Harrington partnered with Hawthorne Elementary School in Willlingboro, but due to the school’s ongoing construction project, they visited Veterans Memorial Family School in Camden in 2012 and 2013.
Harrington students bring their literary works to share with the kids at Veterans Memorial as well as team up with their younger buddies to read stories, participate in activities and share a snack.
Shevrin said the benefits of the program are evident when seeing the two groups interact.
“The older students get a chance to express themselves in a creative way. They get to meet a group of students from another school and take on a role model, almost leadership role,” Shevrin said. “For the younger students, they get someone to read to them. It’s really spectacular to witness.”
