Schools

Heisman Trust Awards $35,000 Grant to Manchester Elementary Schools

Thanks to the award, students at two local elementary schools will receive 10 free books to read over the summer.

The Heisman Trophy came to Manchester on Friday, but it didn’t have anything to do with football.

Instead, it was all about reading.

The Heisman Trophy Trust and its president, William J. Dockery, stopped by Nathan Hale and Washington elementary schools on Friday to announce that the two schools would be receiving a $35,000 grant through the Heisman Scholars Achieving by Reading Program to promote and encourage summer reading.

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The award will actually equal $60,000 in books, Dockery said, since Scholastic Books have agreed to supply the books to the schools at 50 percent off. Thanks to the grant, each student at both of the schools will be able to select 10 free books to take home with them to read over the summer in an effort to stop the “summer reading slide.”

“There’s been studies done that if you don’t read over the summer, you go back in your reading ability three months, four months, five months,” said Dockery.

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Washington Principal Karen Gray said the grant was a unique and wonderful opportunity for the students, because it would allow them to build their own summer reading library at no cost and through picking books that they like, which would mean that those were books that students would be most likely to read.

“This is a really great event, a once in a lifetime moment for Manchester. This is our first time ever getting an award like this,” said Gray. “…With these books that we’re giving you, our goal is to get you to read more and more and more.”

But Dockery didn’t come alone to the elementary schools on Friday, in addition to the Heisman Trophy he brought with him Andy Baylock, director of football and alumni and university affairs at the University of Connecticut, several members of UConn’s football team, and Manchester High School student-athletes Seth DeValve and Ashley Perez. All of them spoke to the students in a pair of assemblies at the schools lauding the importance of reading.

“In college, high school, everywhere you go, reading will help you, it will help you succeed in life,” Michael Box, a junior quarterback for the Huskies, told the crowd of Washington Elementary school students Friday afternoon. “…You can be whatever you want to be in life, but first off it starts in the classroom.”

While Perez, a two-time All State guard on the MHS girls basketball team and still only a junior, encouraged the students to take advantage of the opportunity that the books would bring them.

“With these 10 books you’re getting over the summer, you have to take advantage of it, because not everyone gets this chance,” Perez said. “Reading over the summer is only getting you ready for the next step.”

Dockery noted that because of the size of the grant award, and the agreement with Scholastic to provide the editions half off, the elementary school students would get the opportunity to read whatever type of books most interested them.

“You decide the books, you pick what you want to read,” said Dockery. “You don’t have to pick any yucky books.”

The schools will partner with Scholastic to hold a book fair mid-June, where students will be able to select their 10 books before heading home for the summer. 


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