LIVERMORE – When Shelby Bryant heard about the pain and suffering of people in New Orleans, she decided to do something about it.
The 9-year-old involved her teacher and other educators, students and parents, and they raised nearly $3,634 in a two-week period for reading one hour.
It all started, Bryant said Friday, when she watched the news and heard people yelling and screaming for help in New Orleans.
“I really wanted to help them,” Bryant said.
She and her classmates read stories about Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in a periodical, and Bryant asked her fourth-grade teacher, Julie Bolduc, at the Livermore Elementary School what could be done to help.
Bryant wrote right on top of her paper during a class assignment, Bolduc said, that she wanted to help.
Deciding to find a way
Bryant, who’d written that she was sad for the people in New Orleans, decided that she would find some way to raise money for them.
“I wouldn’t want to be them,” Bryant wrote. “If that happened to our town, then boy, would we panic! No school, no parents, no pets. Just think.”
The two sat down to talk about it.
“I had tons of ideas,” Bryant said.
She initially thought about doing a car wash but then discarded it. As they worked through the ideas, “Mrs. Bolduc had another idea,” Bryant said.
Bolduc suggested they collect pledges for reading.
“I really liked the idea because it was something probably everybody could do,” Bryant said.
The next step was to tell all the parents.
“I took a notebook outside and started some sketches,” Bryant said.
Together, student and teacher developed a sheet to send home about their Reading for Relief idea.
Bolduc then received permission for the project.
“I wanted to teach people to be responsible citizens,” Bryant said. “I was very proud of everyone in the school, and I was very happy we earned so much because parents really donated a lot to help people in New Orleans.”
Students pledged to read one hour on Sept. 22; they were sponsored by a flat-fee rate.
You collected that much?’
Students in one grade would read for an hour, followed by another grade when they were done.
Bryant herself read 24 pages in Book One of Avalon’s Web of Magic “Circles in the Stream,” a science fiction.
“After everyone read for an hour, it was just back to school,” Bryant said. “When Mrs. Bolduc told me how much money we raised, I was very excited. If I could, I would jump up and down.”
Everybody congratulated her on the effort, she said.
When her father, Ron Bryant, called home that night from work, Bryant said, she told her mother to tell him the good news.
“I could hear him, What? You collected that much money?'” Bryant said.
Bolduc plans to make arrangements for the money to go to the American Red Cross.
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