Princeton Academy students George Sullivan (Princeton), Liam Tobin (Lawrenceville), Isaac Schmidt (Princeton), Theodore Plimpton, Andrew Yates (Chesterfield) Luke Nolte (Lawrenceville), Henry Crotty (Princeton) and Walter Plimpton (Lawrenceville) hold the pumpkins they won.
Librarian Ellen Dowling gives a pumpkin to George Sullivan (Lawrenceville).
The “Pumpkin Fairy” brought a gift to the Princeton Academy library during its annual Reading Harvest in October.
Each harvest, the Pumpkin Fairy donates $1 for each book read by students in junior kindergarten through fourth grade. This year she donated $1,050 to the school’s library.
Librarian Ellen Dowling estimated that she would be able to buy around 120 gently used books for the library, which would be selected with the help of the students.
Dowling started the Reading Harvest 13 years ago when she first started at Princeton Academy and took over the school’s small library, which was built solely on donations. Once students read a certain amount, they fill out orange paper pumpkins.
Before the first paper pumpkin was submitted, Dowling met the Pumpkin Fairy, a mother whose son was a student at the academy. The Pumpkin Fairy’s son is now a college student, but the same family still holds its promise to this day to donate $1 for every book submitted for the Reading Harvest.
The other incentive is the pumpkin raffle. For every paper pumpkin submitted, that student’s name is entered in a drawing to win a pumpkin. This year, eight students were selected at random and won pumpkins that ranged from mini-sized to a 26-pounder.
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