It was another successful year for the Postmedia Raise-a-Reader Program in St. John’s, Mount Pearl and Paradise. About 100 volunteers spread out Wednesday morning to various high-traffic areas throughout the two cities, selling special editions of The Telegram. This year’s goal was to sell $12,000 worth of newspapers and thankfully that goal was reached, said Leo Gosse, Telegram reader sales and marketing manager.
All that money will now go to various local literacy projects, Gosse said.
“We’re very pleased to have this amount, and to be able to assist the various literacy initiatives in the province,” he said.
“The Telegram is proud of its ongoing commitment to the Postmedia Raise-a-Reader Program and is already looking forward to bigger and better things next year.”
It was a busy morning Wednesday for everyone involved in selling the papers, including members of the RNC, RCMP, St. John’s Mayor Dennis O’Keefe, school children and their teachers and others. The Telegram caught up with some of those kids during a breakfast for all the volunteers at Mary Queen of the World school.
“It was actually really fun. You don’t know ... until the end how many people are going to buy and you don’t know how much money you’re going to make,” said an excited Jordan Brake, 10, from St. Mary’s Elementary.
Most of the student-aged volunteers were selling papers to parents as they escorted their kids to school. Brake, a budding salesman, took a lot of pride in helping to raise the money.
“We’re the smallest school here and it’s like, we made a lot of money and we were pretty surprised that we made that much money,” he said.
Melanie Stone, a teacher at CowanHeights Elementary, donned an orange T-shirt along with her students to help sell the papers.
“I think it’s a great program,” she said. “I think it’s really great to have students involved in a project such as this to promote literacy. To have them realize the importance of what they are learning everyday.”
cmaclean@thetelegram.com
@TelegramMacLean
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