Riverhead Country Day School Students Gift Books to Roanoke Students

Photos courtesy of Riverhead Central School District

Riverhead Country Day School gifted Riverhead Central School District students with books for the holidays for the third year on Wednesday.

According to Riverhead Country School Director Cheryl Taormina, after 20 years, the Riverhead Country Day School has all the books it needs and that the school receives a surplus of free books yearly from their very successful Scholastic Book Fairs, which led them to gift them to other students.

“Three years ago I decided to share our bounty of books with Kelly Schultheis’ first grade class at the Roanoke Avenue School,” Taormina said. “It was a life changing event for me. After I saw the joy on the faces of those children that first year I was hooked.

This year, the school started collecting books a lot earlier and with some supplementing from Taormina, they were able to give two books and a ‘reading buddy’ in the form of stuffed animal to all of the kindergarten and first grade students at the Roanoke Avenue School this year, according to Taormina.

Next year, she hopes to add books for the other classes as well.

Taormina and Roanoke Reading teacher Georgette Keller preceded the gift giving by reading If You Give A Mouse a Cookiein both English and Spanish respectively to all of the kindergarten and first grade classes.

Children who can read in both English and Spanish received one book in English and one book in Spanish.

The children were so excited and very politely thanked Taormina for their little bundle and then quickly returned to their seats so they could examine their gifts.

“Look what I got,” said one little boy excitedly holding up a book based on the movie ‘Frozen’. I loved that movie. Wow, this is great.” Just as excitedly, he held up the second book, Bizcocho ya a la escuela, and grinned.

First grade teacher Cathy Fasanelli, whose class had just received their books and buddies and were excitedly sharing their books with each other, poked her head out the door to thank Taormina once more.

“I just love this community and all these kids,” Taormina said. “I recognized a few of them from when they were at Riverhead Country Day School. I’m already excited about returning next year with even more books.”

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