Reading Makes A Difference™
Bellingham Elementary School
North Hollywood, CA
2022
“The Jester & Pharley’s Read-A-Thon is one of a kind,” Intervention/Prevention Support Coordinator Beth Bacarro said enthusiastically as students wrapped up their three-week read-a-thon at the Jester & Pharley Recognition Assembly. “I love to use David’s story to encourage and motivate our students to read, as well as show kindness to children confined in hospitals.”
She and other teachers and administrators clapped loudly for Bellingham’s Bees. They buzzed through 58,285 pages in three weeks to donate 35 copies of The Jester Has Lost His Jingle/El Bufón ha perdido su gracia and 35 Jester & Pharley Dolls to nearby patients at Dignity Health’s Northridge Hospital Medical Center.
Surprised and excited to become the top reader in the school was a third grader in Ms. Terrano’s class who read 2,883 pages. Equally happy were Ms. Serrato’s fourth graders who were lauded for 100% participation in the read-a-thon.
And the youngest readers ‒ Ms. Martinez’s kindergartners ‒ couldn’t contain their smiles when they got to join Jester & Pharley Phund Executive Director Amy Hastings in front of The Jester & Pharley Mobile at the culmination assembly.
