A local Catholic elementary school has been awarded a prestigious grant.
Holy Family Catholic School has been awarded the Indigo Love of Reading Literacy Foundation Grant. The $40,000 grant is awarded annually to schools across the country.
Dan Rolo, seventh and eighth grade teacher at Holy Family, championed the project and submitted the application for the grant on behalf of the school.
He notes it was the school’s literacy initiatives and passion for reading that made them stand out as applicants.
“Many of the students here also love to read, we have a number of initiatives here so the culture of literacy and the culture of reading was strong,” says Roll. “What we were lacking was a number of new diverse books for students to have access to so that was the primary goal for the grant.”
The school has hosted several initiatives like the Camp Read A lot activity that partnered with Canadian author Eric Walters and the Amazing Race Literacy Initiative that collaborated with eight other schools on the board.
Rolo says the grant will transform the schools library and significantly widen their access to books.
“We’re going to be able to stock our library with a huge number of books. We’ll going to be able to supplement our reading program with a huge number of books, we’ll be able to get books into the classroom, this is going to be really transformative for us.”
The Indigo Love of Reading Literacy Fund Grant aims to raise awareness about the importance of school libraries and provide funds to better resource learning spaces to ensure a love of reading and success for students.
