Yuma High receives grant for new books
The Yuma High School library was announced as a recipient of the Dollar General Literacy Foundation Youth Literacy Grant for the 2017-18 school year on Thursday.
The grant provides $3,000 in funds for new books, which will help grow several areas of the school library’s collection.
YHS is one of five schools in Arizona to receive the grant, which was established in 1993.
YHS librarian Cait Zaksheske said, “This grant will help the library grow our fiction collection with more diverse fiction, in order to reflect our diverse student population, get more graphic novels for SEI (Structured English Immersion) and low reading level students, who find them more approachable than traditional novels, update certain areas of our non-fiction that are woefully outdated, and buy more contemporary novels in Spanish to encourage students to read the books in both English and Spanish.”
The school is required to provide an impact report by May 2018, showing how the grant served students.
“By updating and expanding our library’s collection we will appeal to a wider range of our student population and encourage increased library use,” Zaksheske wrote in the grant application. “This is expected to organically raise reading levels, engage reluctant readers, and assist ELL students become comfortable with the English language.”
According to the Dollar General Literacy Foundation’s website, the foundation has awarded more than $127 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and schools in 43 states that have helped more than 7.9 million individuals learn to read, prepare for high school equivalency tests, or learn the English language.
