Active 20-30 Club donates $4K in books to Paradise Ridge Elementary school
PARADISE » The Active 2030 Club showed up to Paradise Ridge Elementary school with bags full of books.
The school’s principal Ed Gregorio said that the club recently reached out to the school wanting to help with distance learning.
“The first thing that came to mymind was literacy,” he said. “That’s just an important part of the work that we do tomake sure that our students are avid and competent readers.”
He said that because Ridge students have had some disruptions in learning, they’ve realized some students will need some additional support.
“Due to the Camp Fire, some of our students’ home libraries need to be enhanced,” he said. “So we asked them if they would be willing to donate books to second graders.”
Active 20- 30 Club Jen
Swanstrom, who has also worked with the school since November 2018, said that the group raisedmoney for the Ridge following the Camp Fire and were looking for a place to help.
With her connection to the school, Swanstrom’s contact with the school made sense and she learned literacy issue was a big one.
“At least 50 percent of the students in second grade are reading at a kindergarten level,” she said. “So
if they had a set of books that they could read from at home, that would be really important.”
She added that if kids are at the right reading level by third grade, that really influences their future.
The club spent about $ 4,000 on books for second graders at the elementary school.
About 52 childrenwill receive about 10 books in bags in the cafeteria of the school for parents and children to pick up. Gregorio said that the books are at their instructional level and create opportunities to read quality literature.
“We hope that will lead to reading growth and achievement,” he said adding that the teachers are doing a great job with distance learning. “However, we realize that we do have a group of second graders who have some disruptions in their learning.”
Gregorio pointed out that COVID-19 has closed the county library and the school’s library so access to those services has cut down the opportunities to read. Now the club has brought resources to the kids.
“We have two sets of books, one is based on the reading level and not just the recreational reading level,” he said. “The second- grade teachers have designed an instructional unit — in October it is bats. They’re going to get to learn about bats, they get towrite about bats.”