Students celebrate Camp READ-A-LOT achievements in Palos 118

Batches of green goo will soon be prepared for upcoming school assemblies to slime the principals and assistant principals at Palos South, East, and West. Students are eagerly anticipating their reward for reaching reading goals for the Palos 118 Parent Faculty Association’s (PFA) read-a-thon that took place from January 28 - February 11.

“Camp READ-A-LOT" encouraged all students to raise pledges for time spent reading and were rewarded with exciting raffle prizes and classroom parties. Their goal of reading 150 minutes and raising $20 thousand in two weeks wasn’t just met, it was shattered. Palos 118 students and staff read a combined half a million minutes, raising $36,500 for the schools. Students worked hard to earn donations by calling family and friends, and some even created online donation pages. All proceeds go to Palos East, West, and South schools to help pay for assemblies, field trips, and educational tools.

The goals of the read-a-thon were twofold: Generating money for the PFA to support fun learning assemblies and to both foster and inspire a love of reading. Along with PFA President Kori Aldrich, both Gina Narciso and Mary Skweres chaired the initiative.

“We never imagined the Read-A-Thon would be this successful,” said Narciso. “We’re grateful for everyone who supported the new PFA initiative.”

The initiative was launched February 6 with a “dress up like your favorite book character theme day.” There were Harry Potters, Junie B. Joneses, Fancy Nancys, Cats in Hats, Piggies, a leprechaun, an Eye Spy book page, and many more characters roaming the halls of East and West grammar schools. As a district-wide celebration, the PFA sponsored a camp-in family reading night at Palos East on February 7 with different reading stations, activities, campfire sing-along entertainment, hot chocolate, and s’mores.

For even more encouragement, students were shown motivational camping-themed videos featuring characters “DJ Well Read” and “Ranga Reada.” The Palos community even got involved with “celebrities” like principals, teachers, librarians, city clerks, and mayors contributed to the videos by talking about their own personal favorite books and love of reading.

Teachers embraced the initiative by encouraging students to keep reading and some even made videos to show how they read at home. “I posted a video of my family reading at home and challenged my class to join in,” said second grade teacher Mrs. Nicole Sokolov. “Even Mrs. Buschman’s kindergarteners were battling us. It was a blast to see the kids and parents so excited about reading.” The results are now in, and show Sokolov’s class coming in first place at Palos East, and second place district wide, falling three dollars short of Mrs. Moreau’s second grade class at Palos West with $2,628.

The ultimate goal of Camp READ-A-LOT was to foster a lasting love of reading. Prizes went to the top fundraising classes, and top readers. Raffle tickets to be entered into prize baskets of their choice were given when to students when their reading goals were met. Every student now looks forward to the satisfaction of witnessing their principals get slimed in the very near future for their incredible reading achievements.