Mt. Laurel Library and Fire Department have another successful ‘Fired Up for Literacy’ contest
While many children chose to spend their winter break playing with new toys from the holidays or running around outside, some Mt. Laurel students chose to spend their time reading.
And read they did.
This year, 120 students participated in the Mt. Laurel Library and Mt. Laurel Fire Department’s seventh annual “Get Fired Up For Literacy” program.
Each year, the program challenges Mt. Laurel elementary school students in grades one through four to spend time during their winter break reading a book or two, or 10, or however many they’d like.
Then, during each reading session throughout their break, participating students use a reading log to record the name of any books they read and the amount of time they spent reading in total.
Once winter break ended, students then submitted their logs to the library, and one winner was chosen from each participating grade at each of Mt. Laurel’s six elementary schools.
“It’s a really good motivator for them to read during that break,” said Mt. Laurel Library manager of special projects Julie Binger. “It’s a good amount of participants, and I’m always amazed at how much they actually do focus on reading.”
Final winners are then selected at random from each school’s grade winners to receive the contest’s grand prize — a ride to school in a fire truck.
“I love when they do the fire truck rides, because the school will organize a whole school-wide assembly where they wait for the student to get dropped off and congratulate them, and it’s nice that the entire school gets to be involved,” Binger said.
All participating students also received a reading certificate for having read a minimum of 60 minutes.
This year’s contest ran from Dec. 20 through Jan. 6, and this year’s 120 participants spent a combined total of 64,896 minutes with their nose in a book.
Hillside and Parkway elementary schools tied for the most participants with 27 at each school. Larchmont was close behind with 24, then Springville with 17, Fleetwood with 16 and finally Countryside with nine.
The list of winners at Hillside Elementary were Nisha Alam, grade one, Siena Quattrocchi, (grand prize) grade two, Alaina Rodriguez, grade three, and Bria Morgan, grade four.
The list of winners at Parkway Elementary were Gwendolyn Teske, grade one, Justin Coffman (grand prize) grade two, Tanay Samnani, grade three, and Kaitlyn Lee, grade four.
The list of winners at Larchmont Elementary were Addison Basis, grade one, Zyna (No last name given), grade two, Rishab Wardhane, grade three, and Max Castner (grand prize) grade four.
The list of winners at Springville Elementary were Radhika Soni, grade one, Krithik Alluri, grade two, Arjun Tyagi, (grand prize) grade three, and Rebecca Cui, grade four.
The list of winners at Fleetwood Elementary were Tommy Kerwick, grade one, Aditya Khurana, grade two, Shreeya Soma, (grand prize) grade three, and Riya Mandala, grade four.
The list of winners at Countryside Elementary were Elijah Rogelio, grade one, Peter Kim, grade two, Ruby Lanzisera, grade three, Ilana Shanes (grand prize) grade four.
Fire truck rides are scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 22.
