Northeast Elementary School students can do more reading this school year, thanks to a donation from Vidant Family Medicine-Belhaven.

Vidant gave a donation of $1,000 to the school, a donation facilitated by Bright Futures Beaufort County, and part of the money was then used to purchase about 1,200 new or gently used books, according to Principal Mark Clinkscales.

He said each student in kindergarten through sixth grade received two books each, and they were called by reading level into the library over the past week to select which two books they wanted.

Clinkscales said a couple of teachers traveled to Fifth Street Books in Mebane on a weekend in mid-November to make the book giveaway a reality. The bookstore offers a promotion for teachers where one can buy books at a price of 25 cents, so they took advantage of the deals and filled up an SUV.

After loading up the books and bringing them back, he said the teachers then set up the books in the library based on reading levels, and allowed the students to come choose books, starting with the younger grades.

“Obviously it’s a pretty good deal because…some of those big ol’ chapter books are more expensive,” Clinkscales said.

Kelly Dehoog, a third-grade teacher at Northeast who organized the book giveaway with media coordinator Dorothy Black, said seventh- and eighth-graders also received one book each.

“It all started last year. I was reading an article about why there’s such a gap in reading between low-income children and more affluent children,” she said. “That made me get thinking, you know.”

According to the article, low-income students do not usually have as many books as do their more affluent peers, and their parents don’t usually have the time or resources to go to the library on a regular basis, especially during the summer, Dehoog said.

She said she felt this was an area in which Northeast could use some help, as some of the students come from low-income families.

And this isn’t the first time Dehoog has organized an event like this.

Before the end of the last school year, she received money from the Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) to purchase books for kindergarten through second grade, sparking the idea to expand the giveaway.

“I thought, you know, this would be really great if we could do this for the whole school,” Dehoog said.

She said it is important to make sure students do not fall behind in reading throughout the school year, but also during the summer break, and providing them with more books can help with that.

“Since we have a lot of low-income families in the area, we figured it was worth giving a try,” Dehoog said, adding that the students were excited to receive a sort of “Christmas gift” from the school.

“It was really special. I enjoyed being a part of it,” she said.

“Vidant has really done some good things and we’re really, really appreciative of what they’re doing,” Clinkscales said. “A lot of these kids wouldn’t otherwise have access to a book.”