Reaching a goal can be a satisfying feeling.
Throw in a pizza party compliments of the Times-Republican and it can make someone downright giddy.
The third grade class of teacher Gena Graglia at Hoglan Elementary School recently held a pizza party in celebration of the class reaching its goal of reading 7,600 minutes at home in four weeks.
The project was known as Super Goals and started the week of the Super Bowl in a challenge from the Times-Republican and Graglia. The students shattered the goal by reading a total of 9,274 minutes between the 19 students.
"We are very pleased," Graglia said. "I told them to always keep that goal in front of you and believe you could make it. We made our goal and had a great time doing it."
Each student spent at least 100 minutes a week for four weeks reading on their own time at home.
"I really ran out of books and had to find new books," said student Victoria Steggall who often times read up to an hour a night.
Reading got contagious in a good way for other students in the class. One student - Ashlee Fogt - spent 900 minutes of her own time reading during the challenge.
Student Justyn Hargan said once he got into the stories it was tough to keep from reading.
"When I was reading it was hard to put a book down," Hargan said.
As part of the students meeting the goal Marshalltown's Wells Fargo donated $10 per student to the American Red Cross for Haiti earthquake relief, which totaled $190.
"It's so nice to see youth get involved," said Shirley Davis, director of volunteers with the Iowa Rivers Chapter of the Red Cross "It makes you feel so good."
Students in the class also won the school-wide penny wars recently by collecting $225 for Haiti relief and gave up the pizza party they earned to the second place team as they already had one planned for the reading challenge. Hoglan collected $1,263 for Haiti relief as a school during the penny wars.
Graglia hopes the students continue to read at least 20 minutes a night at home even though the challenge is over.
"I hope it not only showed them, but also their parents, that there is a way to squeeze in 20 minutes of reading," she said. "I would like them to continue it."
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Contact Andrew Potter at 641-753-6611 or apotter@timesrepublican.com
