Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

FPG brings reading to life

Posted on March 18, 2010March 18, 2010 by Staff

BY KATE GRIESMANN
Staff Writer

Students at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School took advantage of an extra hour of daylight Monday by attending the school’s Readathon night. The Readathon has been an annual event at FPG for 12 years, but this was the first time a family night was included in the two-week fundraiser.

This year’s Readathon theme was “Reading Adventures in Your Backyard,” and, fittingly, the school media center became an outdoor adventure-land filled with tents, canoes, kayaks and even an indoor campfire. The sound of crickets filled the air and the walls were decorated with scenes of mountains.

“What better way to infuse the library than to transform it?” said school librarian Kathryn Cole. “Kids who do not like to read are begging to come down so they can read in the tents and canoes.”

Certainly the media center was a popular place Monday night. In every corner, students paired up with parents or friends to read books by flashlight or lantern. Second-grader Leah Hurwitz climbed into the stern of a canoe while her mother took the bow.

“I like to read over there,” Leah said, pointing toward a cluster of tents and canoes on the far side of the media center. “But I usually don’t get to because I’m slow at picking books.”

Family night also included storytelling by local children’s authors Amy Odom and Rosemarie Gulla, show-and-tell with rehabilitated wild animals by the Piedmont Wildlife Center and a bake sale. Parents were offered ideas on how to support reading at home through BookFlix, an online reading program available to FPG students. The Chapel Hill Public Library also was on hand to sign families up for library cards.

Second-grader Rachel Grau attended family night with her mother and sister. “So far I’ve read about four hours,” she said of Readathon. “My favorite part of tonight was getting to see the animals in the science area.”

Readathon is consistently the school’s most successful fundraiser, raising approximately $10,000 last year. The funds were used to support a variety of school programs including upgrades to the science lab and media center and money for fieldtrips and purchasing classroom supplies. To participate, students set individual goals of the number of minutes they plan to read and ask parents, friends and neighbors to support them with monetary donations.

The student body as a whole is trying to read a grand total of 500,000 minutes. If the students reach the half-million mark, Cole and the school’s science teacher, Liz Stabenow, have agreed to participate in the FPG Challenge: Cole will hold a snake and Stabenow will touch a tarantula while hundreds of excited – and well-read – students look on.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme