Melcher-Dallas students held a Read-a-Thon. Every student at the elementary building, three year olds through 6th grade, participated in the 10 day Read-a-Thon. 

The Read-A-Thon is a fundraiser that raised money for the school while encouraging and rewarding students for reading. Strong reading skills are key to educational success and the 10 days of reading gets students involved and excited about books and other reading materials, according to teacher Holly VanWyk.

When readers got a sponsor, they helped raise money for the M-D PTO. The event took place from January 16th through January 30th. 

VanWyk, a fifth grade teacher at Melcher-Dallas tells KNIA/KRLS News, “I would say the event was a huge success. Not just because we almost hit our sponsorship goal, but because even the amount of readers who took part and the amount of readers who took time at home to read with their parents, grandparents or older sibling. So, that was the main focus was to put an emphasis on reading.”

As a building, Melcher-Dallas set a goal to raise $10,000 and read 80,000 minutes. According to VanWyk, the students read 58,766 minutes with 179 readers which she said was great with the number of readers they had, and with a week to go in fundraising they are within $100 of the $10,000 goal. The PTO gives back 100% of what is raised. It all gets used on the students and staff in various ways.