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Elsmere 5th Grade Class reads books to give books
Release Date: Feb. 21, 2008
Whoopi Goldberg challenged classrooms across the country to read for the chance to give to others. Mr. Valenti's 5th grade class at Elsmere Elementary School completed the 100 book challenge and now has books to give to its favorite local charities!
Mr. Valenti's class at the Bethlehem Central School District elementary school has just won the Whoopi! We're Reading! Sweepstakes, a national sweepstakes sponsored by Scholastic Book Clubs, and will soon be donating their prize - 1,000 books from Scholastic - to several local charities, nonprofits and educational organizations. They are: Trinity Institution - Homer Perkins Center, Inc.; Two Together; Albany Mothers Book Club; Albany Medical Center; and the new Eagle Elementary being constructed in Bethlehem Central. The prizewinners were participants in Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare program - a philanthropic literacy initiative that encourages reading with the promise that for every 100 books read by students across the country, 100 books will be donated to kids in need. The 4th and 5th graders will hold an assembly in their gym on Friday, Feb. 15th at 2:30 p.m. At that time, all of the books will be donated to the recipients in the audience, including representatives of the charities and nonprofits and new Eagle Elementary School Principal Dianna Reagan.
Of more than 17,000 classes across the country that entered the sweepstakes, Mr. Valenti's class was one of only 100 to win the prize. In October, Whoopi Goldberg, the actor, comedienne, author of Whoopi's Big Book of Manners and producer and host of the syndicated Wake Up with Whoopi! radio program invited classrooms from across the country to join ClassroomsCare and read 100 books for a chance to win 1,000 books for them to donate to the local charity or 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 Whoopi! We're Reading! Sweepstakes, ClassroomsCare is extending its reach even further.
"My students and I were so excited when we found out we won this sweepstakes!" said Mr. Valenti. "We love ClassroomsCare, and it's even-better that we were able to donate the books we won to local charities. My students have been reading a lot this year, and now they're learning how special it is to give, especially to those less fortunate."
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, learn more about the four organizations working with Scholastic Book Clubs to improve literacy, and to download a Certificate of Congratulations.
More than 750,000 classrooms nationwide have participated in ClassroomsCare since its inception in 2002, and more than 7 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.