SHARING THE GIFT OF READING: Parkside based Troop 489 Girl Scouts Dana Kodger, 12, and Missy Seekely, 12, share books with students from Watterson-Lake Elementary School in Cleveland. The Westlake residents earned the Bronze Award for organizing efforts that collected over 400 books for the Cleveland school’s library. (Photo by Larry Bennet)

Sharing the gift of reading:
Girl scouts collect books for Cleveland school
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published March 1, 2006

When Watterson-Lake Elementary School in Cleveland added grades six, seven and eight in a restructuring this past fall, one problem the West 47th Street school faced was a lack of library books for its new middle school students.

Enter two Westlake girls scouts — Melissa Seekely and Dana Kodger. On Friday, the two Parkside Intermediate School sixth-graders, both 11, dropped off 400 new and used books they collected for Watterson-Lake middle school students.

The two girls, members of Troup 489 based at Parkside, took on the project to obtain scouting’s Bronze Award, which they will receive in April.

Caren Geissinger, principal of Watterson-lake, told West Life their effort shows that young people can make a difference.

“It’s just amazing that from one small, simple idea they got such broad-based community support,” Geissinger said.

When grades six, seven and eight were added in September, library materials for students in those grades were scant, she said.

“These two little girls answered that call,” Geissinger said, “which I think was absolutely marvelous of them.”

The Seekely family learned about the need at Watterson-Lake through their church, St. Peter Episcopal Church in Lakewood, said Duwayne Seekely, Melissa’s mother. The church sponsors tutoring and other programs at the Cleveland school.

Melissa and Dana created flyers asking for donations of new and gently used books and posted them at Westlake’s Lee Burneson Middle School, their neighborhood and church.

While many used books were donated, some people took the effort to purchase brand new books for the scouts’ collection, a fact which impressed Melissa.

“We didn’t think someone would go out and buy books for us,” she said.

Students and staff at Watterson-Lake thanked Melissa and Dana for their donations at a ceremony Friday afternoon.

Melissa said it was apparent the students were appreciative of the new books and eager to start reading.

“It was amazing to see the kids getting the books,” Melissa said.

When the pastor at St. Peter mentioned the girls’ collection during a service, a parishioner, Ken Taylor, was inspired to arrange a grant of $1,000 from the Cleveland Foundation for Watterson-Lake’s library.

Rachael Brooks, the librarian at Watterson-Lake, told Melissa the $1,000 grant was more than her entire budget for a year.

But Melissa and Dana’s efforts to help their fellow students at Watterson-Lake are not over. In the coming weeks, they plan to make a presentation to the St. Peter’s Foundation requesting another $1,000 for the school’s library.