Perryville Elementary Students Donate Books for Kindergartener

(Photo by Perry County School Dist. No. 32)

Seven year old J.T. Niccum, son of Jeff and Brandy Niccum of Perryville, was overwhelmed with the generosity of the Perryville Elementary School students when he saw the donations they made for him. A service project to purchase books from the Scholastic Book Fair for the kindergartener netted hundreds of dollars worth of books and gifts. "J.T. will be receiving a bone marrow transplant in the near future," said PES Librarian Patty Wengert and overseer of the project, "and the books and gifts given by the students will help him to pass the time during treatments and long hospital stays."

J.T. was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and is now battling leukemia. "Our students did a project like this a couple of years ago for one of our other students that was going through treatments for cancer," said Wengert, "and this seemed like the right thing to do to help J.T. We held our Scholastic Book Fair last week and many students bought books and donated them for J.T.'s cause. Other students brought in extra money and their classrooms pooled the money and purchased books. We had a container at the check-out stand called 'One for Books' where kids could drop their change into it and books were purchased with those receipts. The students gave enough books and cash to fill two giant boxes with books and gifts from the book fair for J.T. Some of the kids even said they brought in their birthday money to give toward the cause. We have some really awesome and generous kids here at Perryville Elementary and I'm very proud of how they responded to this need."

Although the books will help J.T. to pass the time he has to spend in the hospital, Wengert also noted that there are other ways people can help children with serious illnesses like cancer. "Families go through a lot during these difficult times," said Wengert, "and need the support of the community and their families more than ever. Showing that we care and not shying away from people with these serious illnesses goes a long way to help with the healing process. Another way people can help is to give blood because many times cancer patients need to get blood transfusions. There are all kinds of ways that we can help to ease the suffering of those that have such serious illnesses and I am especially proud of our students here at Perryville Elementary for the part they are playing in that effort."