At a recent HFCS School Board Meeting, PTA President Heather St. Hilaire presented a check for $4,000 to Elementary School Principal Patrick Dailey and k-6 Reading Teachers Tiffany Grant and Jenn Barron to fund the 1,000 Book Club, a program designed to encourage reading in pre-school children and have books provided for them to do so. The goal is to have children read (or have read to them) at least 1,000 books by the time they enter kindergarten. A set of 100 bags, each containing ten pre-selected books, is available to take out of the elementary school library. Once the children have read the ten books, they return the bag to the library and check out another. There is no specific order
to the bags and each one has an equally represented sample of genres and styles. Children will receive incentives for reaching reading goals. Families interested in this program should contact the elementary school office.
The HFCS PTA has chosen to focus on the area of literacy for its fund-raising efforts this year with part of its energy geared toward revitalizing the elementary school library. Volunteers are working to organize and repair books and make grant requests to obtain funds to replace its aging book inventory and equipment.