What can $9 buy? Instead of two skinny vanilla lattes from Starbucks or two Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit combos, teacher Amy Sheridan thought about books for her fourth-graders at Northwood Elementary in Roswell.
Sheridan credits the initial concept to a friend who was on Facebook trying to raise money for her classroom. Sheridan took the idea farther at the beginning of the school year, asking for $9 donations to buy a $1 book for each student for nine months.
“We tried it, and at first, we didn’t think it would work,” she said. “But money kept coming in. Within 48 hours, we had enough to pay for 115 students’ books for the entire year – that’s one book a month.”
Sheridan and fellow fourth-grade teachers Denise Healy, Nicole Sickle and Alyssa Wood purchase the books from the Scholastic Book Clubs catalogue that each month promotes one special buy for $1. And the deals aren’t on books no one would want, Sheridan pointed out.
“Recently, it was ‘Stuart Little.’ For Halloween, we gave out a ‘Goosebumps’ book. And coming up, we have ‘The Secret Garden’ and ‘Old Yeller.’ We’ve also picked books that go along with our curriculum, so we’ve really covered the majority of the genres.”
Within a few months, the teachers had raised enough money to expand the program to other classes in the 800-student school.
“We’ve also provided books to the entire third grade,” said Sheridan. “And other grade levels have decided to try it, too. The kindergarten has also raised money. We’re now providing books for the entire school.”
By December, the program was big enough to move beyond the Northwood walls. Under the name of “That’s What Friends Are For: Northwood Networks Nine Novels,” Northwood purchased books for two nearby elementary schools as well as four Title I schools in south Fulton County.
“By the end of the year, we’ll have passed out about 8,000 books,” said Sheridan. “It’s all from donations. We even had a kindergarten grandparent who gave $1,000 twice because he loved the idea. The response has been amazing.”
Sheridan has also received positive feedback from students who have written letters thanking Northwood for the books. Others are excited to have a book with their name on it to add to a personal collection. And she’s seen a direct correlation to her students’ reading skills.
“Our diagnostic levels for reading have gone up this year because we’re promoting reading so much,” she said. “We’re very proud of what we’ve done.”
Information about Northwood is online at school.fultonschools.org/es/northwood.
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Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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