At least one child at Lord Roberts Annex is itching to read The Day the Crayons Quit.
Vice principal Brenda Boylan said a boy gazed into a display case Friday and asked, “When am I going to get to read that book?”
She told him it would be in the library in a week.
“OK. Let me know,” he said.
The book is one of 28 new selections bought with money raised by two alumnae of the school at Nelson Park behind St. Paul’s Hospital.
Kaleigh Main and Sophia Palozzi, who entered Grade 8 this month, started fundraising for the annex’s library in Grade 2.
Main noticed other students couldn’t afford to buy books at a new book fair, so she and Palozzi organized a used book fair. They sold books for 25 to 50 cents and raised $200 for the school’s library.
In Grade 3, the pair enlisted younger students so their juniors could take over the event when they moved to the main Lord Roberts school in Grade 4. The summer before Grade 4, Main and Palozzi erected a lemonade stand on Davie Street near Denman during the Celebration of Light. They’ve slung lemonade for a buck a cup one night of the fireworks every year since to raise money for the annex’s library.
“We kept fundraising because when we were in the annex, the library had been a really important part of the school to us,” Palozzi said.
Boylan estimates the pair has raised more than $2,000 for the library. She says Main and Palozzi choose additions to the library with great care. “They’ll be like so-and-so teaches about penguins, this looks like a great new penguin book,” Boylan said, adding, “That idea of service unto others and how can we give of ourselves and think beyond ourselves, these two girls are the epitome of that at such a young age.”
Boylan identifies the books the girls have chosen with stickers and highlights them in a display case at the start of the school year with a photo of the pair and a write up about their fundraising efforts.
An annex student recognized them on the playground last year.
“You could just see that pride in them,” Boylan said. “They’ve never asked for anything in return.”
Main and Palozzi hope to sell lemonade again next summer. “It’s still a school that is very dear to us because it was our first school and it was small and so we knew all teachers,” Main said.
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