Nicomekl Elementary has plenty to celebrate after recently being named a recipient of a $50,000 Love of Reading grant from Indigo.
Staff made the announcement during a school-wide assembly Thursday, and there was plenty of cheering amongst students when a large novelty cheque for $50,000 was revealed.
The funds, to be dispersed over a three-year span, will go towards supplementing the school's library, principal Charlene Redekop said. As well, the funds will allow each classroom to create its own "home-reading collection" which will allow students to take books home to read.
"We just want to provide access to books for all our students. We want to continue to develop a love of reading in our school," she said. "We've been trying to build that in a number of different ways and this will help us take that to the next level."
In total, Indigo donates more than $1 million annually to schools across Canada through its Love of Reading grant program.
Students at Nicomekl will get the opportunity to help choose what new books the school adds to its collection. Next year, Redekop said the plan is to have each class take a field trip to Indigo, where they'll get to browse books that could potentially be bought for their classroom collection.
Redekop said that with the ongoing goal of creating a more inclusive environment, the goal is to also add books to the school's library that represent different cultures, and that are printed in multiple languages.
Redekop noted that there are nearly 30 languages spoken by families at the school.
"We have students from a lot of different cultures and we want books in our library that reflect them. We want to build a culture of literacy and we want students to see themselves reflected in the books that they read," she said.
Redekop also praised her staff for "going above and beyond" in securing the grant. Last year, a group of staff members put together an application and a short video that "really reflected what we're all about here at Nicomekl."
"We have an amazing group of teaches here who came together to do this," she said. "They are just a very, very dedicated group and they put it a lot of extra time for our kids, and now we'll be set up for the future with new books that interest our students."
