Harford County Public Library Awards Top Summer Readers

From the Harford County Public Library:

Ring Factory Elementary School, Patterson Mill Middle School and Patterson Mill High School are the recipients of the Harford County Public Library (HCPL) 2013 Summer Reading trophies. The trophies were awarded to the public elementary, middle and high schools with the highest percentage of students who completed the Dig Into Reading Summer Reading Program. In addition, John Archer School was presented with an Extraordinary Achievement Award for having an impressive 74 percent completion rate among students who participated.

To get the word out about the Summer Reading Program, Library staff visited 55 schools during the spring months, reaching 25,357 students. This summer over 16,000 children and teens registered for the program and participants completing the HCPL 2013 Summer Reading Program read a total of over 99,500 books. In addition, over 300 middle and high school students contributed over 6,200 hours as Summer Reading Program volunteers.

Support from the local community continues to enable HCPL to provide incentives to participants for completing the program. Elementary school participants in the Dig Into Reading program received a free book after reading 10 books. Middle school participants received a free book or journal and high school teens received a Chick-fil-A gift card when they read three books in the Beneath the Surface program. Incentives were funded by the HCPL Foundation’s annual mailer campaign which received widespread community support and sponsorships from HarCo Federal Credit Union, Rosedale Federal Savings & Loan Association, Chick-fil-A, Morris Mechanic Foundation, Aberdeen Rotary, Darlington Friends of HCPL, Berardino Family Trust, Advanced Eye Care, The Aegis, APGFCU, Huntington Learning Centers, Celebree Learning Centers, Growing Smiles Pediatric Dentistry, Huether-McClelland Foundation, and Wegman’s. The Summer Reading Program ended on August 17th.

Harford County Public Library operates eleven branches located throughout Harford County, Maryland. The library serves 182,000 registered borrowers of all ages and has an annual circulation of over 4.1 million. Harford County Public Library is committed to connecting people with information and promoting the love of reading within the community.