Sacred Heart students read for the hungry

LYNN – The Sacred Heart School in Lynn and the Tree of Life Food Pantry join forces every year to raise money and provide food for the hungry and homeless in the Greater Lynn Area during Lent, and the 2008 effort may be the school’s most creative charitable venture yet.Looking for a way to get students inspired about giving, and learning, the school added a new element to the annual food drive this year with the Making Minutes Count reading campaign.Students were asked to record the minutes they read each day with the school-wide goal of 30,000 minutes each week. If the overall goal was met each Friday, a monetary donation would be made to the Tree of Life Food Pantry, along with the usual non-perishable food items.Students and faculty alike responded in great numbers to the pledge, reading 184,843 minutes over the month-long event, and raising $300 for the charity.”Students were encouraged to turn off their computers and televisions to pick up a book and read for the needy,” said Sacred Heard Principal Joanne Eagan. “Sacred Heart families were generous in collecting and donating canned goods for the benefit of the food pantry.”Eagan said parents, students and faculty were dedicated to the effort, and all worked together to help achieve the reading goals. Even students in pre-kindergarten classes were participating at ages as young as three.Families were given a calendar to keep track of their reading, and students would enthusiastically run to the pledge board and report their progress each week.”The kids were running up here every day with the paper because they were so excited,” said Eagan. “The parents were pretty faithful too – sometimes if the kids were out sick they would be running in themselves to drop off the sheet.”On days when students would fall behind their goals, Eagan said the staff would step up and challenge them with their own pledges to get them reading again, and without fail the next day’s numbers would make up for the previous shortfall.”There were a couple of nights that we were a little bit short, and I made the pledge to read 90 minutes myself if they would read 15,” she said. “So we were short a few times, but we more than made it up the next day.”