Nicomekl Elementary has plenty to celebrate after recently being named recipient of a $50,000 Love of Reading grant from Indigo.

Staff made the announcement during a school-wide assembly Thursday, and there was plenty of cheering amongst students when a large novelty cheque for $50,000 was revealed.

The funds, to be dispersed over a three-year span, will go towards supplementing the school鈥檚 library, principal Charlene Redekop said.

As well, the funds will allow each classroom to create its own 鈥渉ome-reading collection,鈥� which will allow students to take books home to read.

鈥淲e just want to provide access to books for all our students,鈥� Redekop said.

鈥� We want to continue to develop a love of reading in our school,鈥� she added. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been trying to build that in a number of different ways, and this will help us take that to the next level.鈥�

In total, Indigo donated more than $1 million to 30 schools across Canada through its Love of Reading grant program this year.

Students at Nicomekl will get the opportunity to help choose what new books the school adds to its collection.

Next year, Redekop said the plan is to have each class take a field trip to Indigo, where they鈥檒l get to browse books that could potentially be bought for their classroom collection.

Redekop said that with the ongoing goal of creating a more inclusive environment, the goal is to also add books to the school鈥檚 library that represent different cultures, and that are printed in multiple languages.

Redekop noted that there are nearly 30 languages spoken by families at her school.

鈥淲e have students from a lot of different cultures and we want books in our library that reflect them. We want to build a culture of literacy and we want students to see themselves reflected in the books that they read,鈥� she said.

The principal also praised her staff for 鈥済oing above and beyond鈥� in securing the grant.

Last year, a group of staff members put together an application and a short video that 鈥渞eally reflected what we鈥檙e all about here at Nicomekl.鈥�

鈥淲e have an amazing group of teaches here who came together to do this,鈥� Redekop said. 鈥淭hey are just a very, very dedicated group and they put it a lot of extra time for our kids, and now we鈥檒l be set up for the future with new books that interest our students.鈥�

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian students and teachers are finding themselves in a literacy education crisis, as approximately 25 per cent of Grade 3 children in Canada are not reading at their grade level, said Rose Lipton, executive director of Indigo Love of Reading Foundation.

The burden these children are facing is not spread equally, as children in low socio-economic communities are almost two times as likely to be behind in early development skills as high-socio-economic status peers, she added, explaining the motivation behind giving $50,000 to Nicomekl Elementary and all the other school.

鈥淥ut of hundreds of schools across Canada, we鈥檝e selected an amazing group of schools to share in over a million dollars of funding for their school libraries. Many of the schools we鈥檝e selected lack the resources to fill their school libraries. And so these funds are going to grow their literacy programming exponentially,鈥� Lipton concluded.

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