Mrs. Jenna Hixson and her students planned to donate over 1,000 books to Operation Santa Claus at the beginning of December 2012. Mrs. Hixson eagerly “called Operation Santa Claus and was crushed with one sentence: ‘Donations are no longer being accepted.’” However this “moment of disappointment was a blessing in disguise.” This eventually resulted into the club ‘Reading Buddies’ being created.

Reading Buddies is a club at Southmoreland High School that allows high school students to help students in kindergarten through second grade at the Southmoreland Primary Center become better readers. Reading Buddies was created at Southmoreland High School by high school English teacher Mrs. Hixson. Reading Buddies started in a rather unconventional way.

When asked what inspired her to create Reading Buddies Mrs. Hixson replied “In November of 2012, I was looking through the Tribune Review when I saw that Operation Santa Claus was looking for children’s books. Every year I try to implement a literacy project, so I thought this was a good idea.”

So for a month Mrs. Hixson’s 9th and 11th grade students brought in books for the project. Books have always been important to Mrs. Hixson, and in order to inspire students to bring in books she said “I told my students how important books can be to a child: they can inspire, comfort, and build creativity. I told them about my childhood of playing school with my children’s books and stuffed animals. Many students had similar, heart-warming stories.”

Mrs. Hixson said “at the beginning of December we had approximately 1200 books” that she planned to donate to Operation Santa Claus. However, Mrs. Hixson received the news that she could no longer donate books to Operation Santa Claus. Despite that, Mrs. Hixson and her students still “wanted to do something meaningful with the books.”

At this time Ian Hixson a young boy from Scottdale passed away so Mrs. Hixson and her students “donated 150 of the brand new books to Children’s Hospital in memory of Ian Hixson.” The rest of the books were used to start the Reading Buddy Program.

On Fridays after school the high school students would go to the Primary Center and were then assigned a student that they work with to help with their reading. Mrs. Hixson stated “Every Friday, I walk approximately 30-50 high school students to the Primary Center after school to volunteer time reading and practicing sight words with kindergarteners and first graders.”

When asked what was the most rewarding thing that comes out of participating in Reading Buddies, Mrs. Hixson replied “watching a child’s face light up because of a book, for the high school giver and child receiver.” Students at the Primary Center “benefit because they see that reading can be fun and is important to their high school role model.”

Samantha Gray a junior at Southmoreland High School has participated in Reading Buddies since her freshman year and fully supports the club. Gray says “the best part about Reading Buddies for me was growing close to my Reading Buddy Levi”. Samantha said she “would definitely recommend others do Reading Buddies.”

Last year approximately “over 100 students at the high school and over 50 students at the Primary Center” participated in Reading Buddies. This will be the third school year that Reading Buddies has existed at Southmoreland. Mrs. Hixson plans “to continue it for years to come.”