20 Mar 2018 North Central Review (Kilmore), Melbourne (General News) by Brooke Haffenden Member for Northern Victoria Jaclyn symes and Member for Yan Yean Danielle Green visited Upper Plenty Primary School last Friday and delivered a cheque of S90,000 towards a new school library. Read the futt story on page 3. Library turns a new page By Brooke Haffenden A SCI IOOL community campaign to get a library is one step closer thanks to an investment boost ol $90,000 from the stale government. Member for Northern Victoria Jaclyn Symes and Member for Yan Yean Danielle Green visited the school last Friday, March 16, to present the cheque and celebrate the announcement with students, teachers and parents at the school assembly. The fund i ng will mean the school cancreatea new permanent library space that is large enough to support its volunteer-run lunch time library service as the library is currently temporarily housed in a small classroom space. Ove r the past seve ral years, the school has raised 150,000 through various fundraisers. Principal Sue Egan said the students wrote letters to their local members of stale and federal parliament raising the issue of the need for a school library. Parent .lodie Hopper, who has children at the school, also raised this issue with Ms Symes late last year and led the campaign. Ms Egan said the students were excited about the new library. Were absolutely delighted to be receiving this grant for our students and were hoping thiswill inspire their loveol reading, she said_ Id like to thank Jaclyn Symes, Danielle Green and Rob Mitchell for supporting us with, the grant and I also want to thank the Depar t me n t of Educat ion for allowing funding to go t hrough so we can have this very valuable resource for our school/ Two of the students who had written letters took the time to thank Ms Symes and Ms Green at the assembly. The new library will be a huge benefit for our school. It will help students improve in reading and it also helps us have lots of choice for class novels and books, ZaraShinn-Mahoney said. We never d reamed though that there would soon come a grant of $90,000. We once again thank you for taking this cause seriously. There was a huge amount of enthusiasm and excitement in. our school when it was announced by Ms Egan than we had got a grant to go towards a new library. We are very grateful that you took our letters approvingly and raised them in parliament. We believe that as soon as our library geLs built all our readers will shoot like stars to become advanced readers and even authors, Kale Hopper added. Ms Symes said libraries form an integral part of any school community and commended the school for itseffots. This is a spectacular result for Upper Plenty Primary School whn had nol only raised funds towards the project, but students and parents also approached their local state and federal Labor Members for assistance, Ms Symes said. Ms Green said the up grade will provide students the first-rate school facilities they deserve, while building community pride in a fantastic local school. It is exciting to see Upper Plenty Primary School get the funding it needs to build a new library that will be a wonderful resource for its students, she said. Caption Text: New chapter: [front) Upper Plenty Primary School captains Zoe Stokes and Cooper Vbrk and (rear) Member for Northern Victoria Jaclyn Symes, principal Sue Egan and Member for Yan fean Danielle Green are excited about the new library.Licensed by Copyright Agency. You may only copy or communicate this work with a licence.