P.S. 98 Students Raise $4,000 for Reading Program

Students from Douglaston’s have raised more than $4,000 for a reading program in honor of the family of a teacher who lost a nephew in Afghanistan, the school’s principal said.

The school’s Ambassadors Club, which is a group of teachers and students who research and select charitable organizations that need assistance, brought in $4,052 through a school-wide fundraiser for the United Through Reading program, said Sheila Huggins, P.S. 98’s principal.

The students raised the money in honor of Sgt. Edward Bolen, who was killed in Afghanistan. The soldier’s aunt teaches at the Douglaston school.

United Through Reading unites deployed military parents with their children through the creation of DVDs in which the soldiers read children’s books aloud to their kids.

The DVDs are then delivered to the homes of the soldiers’ families.

P.S. 98’s students recently held a school-wide read-a-thon and lined up sponsors to pledge money for every page read in the program, Huggins said.

Half of the donations raised by the students will go toward purchasing books and the other half will be used to deliver to create and deliver the DVDs.