Eight Lynchburg City elementary schools celebrate reading over One Million Minutes and raising over $51,000 for School PTOs
Dawn Wise LCS Education Foundation Executive Director
434-515-5081
Media contact:
Megan Huffman
PTO Connect Program Coordinator
(434) 333-4845
Eight Lynchburg City elementary schools celebrate reading over One Million Minutes and raising over $51,000 for School PTOs
March 11, 2026 (Lynchburg, VA) -- On February 25, eight local elementary schools launched school-wide Read-A-Thons that extended to March 6 to include Read Across America Week. Student readers from Bass Elementary School, Bedford Hills Elementary School, Dearington Elementary School, Linkhorne Elementary School, Paul Munro Elementary School, Perrymont Elementary School, Robert S. Payne Elementary School and Sandusky Elementary School set a collective goal to read for 800,000 minutes over ten days to raise funds for their school Parent Teacher Organizations (PTOs). They had exceeded their collective goal and read 1,127,177 minutes and had raised $51,372 from 1,407 family and community supporters.
In 2025, six schools read for over 732,000 minutes and raised over $42,000.
"Our first Read-A-Thon in 2026 has not only excited our whole student body to blow our minute goal out of the water, it has already financially helped us raise over $7,000 which is money we have never had in the four years my children have been at Linkhorne Elementary. It will take the financial burden off us parents and open so many doors to help both teachers and students this next year," said Linkhorne Elementary Pep Squad leader Jen Douglas.
Morgan Hall, Perrymont PTO Secretary and Read-A-Thon Chair said, “The Read-A-Thon has energized Perrymont Elementary students, transforming reading into a school-wide celebration filled with excitement, friendly competition, and proud moments as students see their minutes grow and their love of books expand.”
Each school will host school-wide celebrations on Friday, March 6 to Friday, March 13 with special guests and Hill City Howlers mascot and sponsors. These dates and times can be found below and in the press release attached and the media are welcome to attend.
At the celebrations, top readers in each grade will win prizes such as new Givens Books & Little Dickens scooters, Blackwater Bike Shop helmets, Hill City Howlers prize packs and first pitch certificates, passes to Aqua Zoo, Bounce Lynchburg, FunQuest, Jersey Mike’s, Joe Bean’s, Chick-Fil-A milkshakes, slime or stuffed animals.
Sponsors included LCS Education Foundation, Meade & Edward Lane, Bates Family Orthodontics, Children’s Dentistry and Orthodontics of Lynchburg, Givens Books & Little Dickens, Hill City Howlers, Blackwater Bike Shop, House of Vacuums, and Schewels Home.
READ-A-THON CELEBRATIONS
