Twenty-one years ago in 2001, the Jester & Pharley Phund introduced the first Read-A-Thon program for low-income schools at Lincoln Elementary in Long Beach.
On January 17, Lincoln Elementary’s top readers were awarded during a festive ceremony.
Rita Goshert, Director of Miller’s Child Life program, happily handed out prizes to the surprised top two readers in 30 classrooms, along with Phund President Barbara Saltzman and Executive Director Amy Hastings. Altogether, Lincoln Lions read 226,995 pages, besting 2001 readers by over 100,000 pages. And many students also made Sunshine Cards they gave to Goshert to bring more smiles to her young patients. All participating students received a book from the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation.
The Jester Read-A-Thon sponsored by Farmers & Merchants Bank and the Long Beach Rotary Charitable Foundation generated the donation of David Saltzman’s “The Jester Has Lost His Jingle” children’s book and accompanying Jester & Pharley Doll to Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach. The book was Chadwick graduate Saltzman’s senior project at Yale before he died of cancer at 22 in 1990.
For more information about this program or The Jester & Pharley Phund: https://thejester.org/
