Video by Cooper Slough
By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
As if the last day of school for students at Lincoln Elementary School wasn’t exciting enough, a special guest with a big surprise brought a palpable energy to the students as they prepare for summer vacation.
At a morning assembly Tuesday, students found out their school, 1906 Ash, was the recipient of a $100,000 prize that will be used to purchase new playground equipment, with prizes also awarded to a winning student and homeroom teacher.
“When you participate … we put your name in the hat and the student wins, the classroom teacher wins and the school wins,” said Elijah Collard, president of Reading For Education.
The prize was part of a promotion from Reading for Education in conjunction with GameTime, a manufacturer of playground equipment.
The 35-year-old Tennesse-based company works with schools to develop nontraditional fundraisers that work exclusively through electronic communication to raise funds for schools.
“We are a company that works exclusively with schools. Ninety-five percent of our schools are elementary schools,” Collard said.
GameTime is an Alabama-based playground equipment manufacturer.
“Playgrounds are a wonderful opportunity to build healthy bodies, healthy minds, it provides opportunities to meet your friends and also to make new friends. Best of all, it’s a great opportunity to promote family and family values,” said Rodney Born, Cunningham Recreation, who will oversee the installation of the playground equipment as a representative of GameTime.
The pool of potential winners came from students across the country that participated in a school fundraiser through Reading for Education.
“There were 8,557 schools in this drawing — Lincoln Elementary won. This one, there was about 1.7 million home rooms,” Collard said.
As the homeroom teacher for the winning student, Monica Dreiling was presented with $5,000 to be used for classroom materials and supplies.
After announcing the winning room – and letting the excitement build – Collard announced the winning student of $10,000 as Timothy Hals.
The Hals family won out of 8,459,928 entries according to Collard.
The school will now determine the most suitable equipment for the playground, with installation being overseen by Born.
“I always say Lincoln Elementary School is the best-kept secret in town. Well,I think that’s about to end when we get our new playground,” said Principal Elaine Rohleder.