Hosting a Read-a-Thon Fundraiser in my School Library
Need to boost your school library budget? Have you thought about a Read-a-Thon fundraiser for your school library? In March 2018, I wanted to do something different for Read across America week, so I hosted my first Read-a-Thon fundraiser. I scheduled it back-to-back with our spring book fair… which swished right into spring break…during which we traveled to Texas to see Chip and Joanna’s Magnolia Market. (LOVED IT!)
Not one to squander spare moments, I battled a little strep throat, helped my son find his first house, AND attended an out-of-state funeral. It was a month with lots of happy and sad all smooshed together. But…I’m thinking you probably only want to hear about the bookish stuff, huh? 😉
Why a Read-a-Thon?
For a few years now, I’ve wanted to try a “Read-a-Thon.com” project. My goals were to boost our collection, purchase a Little Free Library, and maybe buy a half-dozen BreakoutEDU kits, too. The website calculator said my school could potentially earn $53,000! Yeah, right. I was skeptical. (But hey… you never know until you try!) I got permission from my principal, and decided that I would be happy to just double my book fair proceeds. Honestly, I had no idea what I was getting into, but my experience has turned out to be amazing! (And I have to give HUGE KUDOS to my school’s teachers for jumping in and supporting the cause of reading!)
I planned out my two-week timeline to be the week BEFORE Read across America. This was also the week when the book fair would be delivered, and we’d be browsing and making wish lists. I knew we would have lots of opportunities for getting those reading minutes clocked!
The One Who Got the Ball Rolling
A fellow teacher served as a successful catalyst by planning out a fun two weeks for his firsties. He came up with amazing daily reading activities that the kids could “track” on their dashboards, which tallied their reading minutes. He generously shared his ideas with his team, and with me, and he let me share them with the whole school. His ideas got everyone excited and on board! (Thank you, Mr. Smith!)
After that, each grade level began to think up very creative ideas for indoor and outdoor reading jaunts! They planned stinky feet reading, flashlight reading, campsite reading, sunshine reading, tell-a-joke day reading… and the list went on and on! Thanks to the teachers’ buy-in, our first read-a-thon was a huge success!
Want to know more about hosting your own Read-a-Thon? Check out this blog post!
