Nearly 200 students from Uniondale’s Lawrence Road Middle School took part in the school’s second annual Read-A-Thon, which ran from Nov. 3 through Jan. 23. The participants raised money based on the time they spent reading, in support of the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless, which helps combat homelessness across the region.
Lawrence Road students in sixth and seventh grade raised $1,775 by reading for over 164,000 minutes, and celebrated with a pizza party for the top five fundraisers and readers. The school also created an escape room challenge for the students with the most minutes.
The children recruited sponsors who paid them for every minute they read.
The Read-A-Thon kicked off with an assembly in November, when students heard from representatives of the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless. “They came in last year, and the response that we saw from our then sixth-graders was utterly amazing,” Lawrence Road reading and literacy teacher Sara DiRusso said of the 2025-26 school year’s Read-A-Thon. “We had them come back again and go a little bit deeper, to really explore the crisis of homelessness that we experience here on Long Island, and how the funds and the efforts of our students help them in combating that crisis.”
Second-year Principal Mark McCaw introduced the Read-A-Thon in January 2025, and this year he continued the tradition of highlighting a book he read along with the kids. Last year it was “Ghost” by Jason Reynolds, and this year it was “Ghost Squad,” by Claribel A. Ortega, a story about a Dominican American girl who lives in Florida, and teams up with her best friend and her friend’s grandmother to save their town from ghosts.
“These kids are young and they’re excited,” McCaw said. “When they see adults have a sense of pride in something they’re doing, they share that.”
“Anytime you can encourage a kid to read for fun or for a part of a challenge, it makes it even more enticing to them,” Lawrence Road Librarian Paula Trapani said. “But what I witnessed was genuine enthusiasm.”
Students who read for the most minutes were given a fun reward: an escape room called “The Monster Hunt: Library Skills-Building Adventure.” The activity, created by Jason Edwards, an educator and award-winning writer from Glen Cove, encourages students to learn more about how to use library resources, such as computerized catalogs.
The escape room challenged their imagination and emphasized teamwork skills. According to Nassau BOCES, the concept is to track down and capture a lurking monster. Participants discover clues and solve riddles, which eventually lead them to the monster’s secret lair.
“We want them to see that, one, there’s a life outside of just school — there are a lot of things to be exposed to,” DiRusso said. “And two, they’re using their reading skills here when they’re participating in these things, and interacting and building that social connection.”
She explained that recognizing students for putting in an effort makes a big impact on them. And they don’t have to be the top students.
“This gave them the freedom to read,” Assistant Principal Leigh Sumter said of the Read-A-Thon. “And the library is absolutely excellent for kids to go in and sit in a comfortable chair and pick out a book that they want to read.
“Our librarian has a plethora of books of all different reading levels about all different students, all types of genres,” Sumter added. “And they’re able to go in and find what they like.”
For seventh-grader Jessica Barnes, 12, logging reading minutes was worth more than just prizes.
“I like that we’re helping people in need, or people who don’t have as much as we do,” Jessica said. “I like that we’re helping ourselves as well as helping others, by gaining things from a book that we might not have yet, and giving other people what they might not have.”
