Hjorth Road Elementary is one of the recipients of a $40,000 grant from the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation.
The literacy fund grant, according to the foundation, was “to make sure that, despite the conditions of the pandemic, their students could still fall in love with reading.”
“Over the past year, the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation recognized the difficulties that many children across Canada were faced with and took action to support underfunded elementary schools across the country to ensure that students had books in school and at home,” reads the release.
Hjorth Road was just one of several schools across Canada to receive the grant.
In a compilation video from the grant recipients, a staff member from the school says ”Our collection featured books that did not represent our colourful and diverse community.”
In the release from the foundation, it states that most of the student population at Hjorth Road “come from diverse cultural backgrounds where English is not their first language.
“The dedicated teachers run after-hours programs five days a week to provide a safe environment for extended learning opportunities, crucial to students’ development of literacy, healthy living, and social and emotional skills.”
It adds in the past year, the elementary school has had to dispose of 1,890 books from the library that “were an average age of 70 years old.”