Best-selling author gives $3K to Franklin County Learning Center
Teacher Roxanne Davenport works with students, from left, Nicholas Beardsley, Robert Sechrist and Desi Imes, in the library at Franklin Learning Center. The school has received a $3,000 grant from bestselling author James Patterson to support the school library.(Photo: Submitted)
(Chambersburg) — Thanks to best-selling author James Patterson, the Franklin Learning Center is building a more robust library.
The school for special-education students throughout the county was chosen from among 27,924 other applicants to receive a $3,000 grant from Patterson. In addition, the Scholastic Reading Club will match each dollar of Patterson’s donation with “bonus points” that teachers can use to acquire books and other materials for their classrooms.
As part of an ongoing effort to keep books and reading a number one priority in the United States, Patterson, together with the Scholastic Reading Club, has made a commitment to help save school libraries nationwide with grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 allocated to each of the 467 selected schools.
FLC teacher Roxanne Davenport applied for the grant at the end of last school year and received preliminary notification early this school year that her grant had been selected. She is excited and honored to receive this grant, which will help to purchase new books for the library that will meet the unique needs of the students at the FLC.
“These grants are my humble acknowledgement of some of the terrific work taking pace in school libraries,” Patterson said. “Here’s to communities supporting school libraries. Here’s to a country that makes reading a priority. Here’s to flourishing libraries and to a joyful holiday season. “
This was the first-ever partnership of its kind. Patterson joined forces with Scholastic Reading Club to administer funding applications to their network of 62,000 schools. Applicants were asked to fill out an online application posing the question, “What would your school library do with $1000 to $10000?” The full list of grant recipients is available at www.scholastic.com/patteronpartnership.
Any U.S. school with students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade was eligible for this grant. Patterson hopes that the high volume of requests will raise awareness for the problems facing school libraries today.
This article comes to us through a partnership between WITF and the Chambersburg Public Opinion.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
