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Former student donates books to O.F. school

Jackie Flaherty Dispatch Intern

Reading was not always easy for Samantha Marino. While it came naturally for others, Samantha needed some extra help. Now a junior at Marywood University, she has devoted herself to helping children read inside the same classrooms where she once sat.

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Photo from left front counterclockwise Superintendent Roseann Brutico, Samantha Marino, and teachers Vanessa Nee and Gina Aldrich.

Photo by Jackie Flaherty

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A 2005 graduate, Marino was part of the learning support classes at Old Forge High School. As her strength and love for reading grew, the supplies did not.

“They never seemed to have enough books for me to read,” says the former student about her classroom experience. Marino’s intentions were to create classroom libraries so the books never have to leave. She did just that.

At the end of the school year, Marino presented her former school with a total 189 books she had been collecting at her own expense.

Grossing at more than $1,400, the books range in reading levels from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Both the Old Forge High School and Elementary School learning support classes will benefit from Marino’s donations.

Marino says she started collecting the books for a Literacy Campaign at LCCC, where she received her Early Childhood Education degree in 2008. The books she collected there were donated to the Head Start programs for children.

It was then she said that she began collecting the books on her own to donate to the Old Forge Schools.

Going to yard sales and purchasing lots from eBay, Marino collected a wide variety of new and used books for her book drive.

This hasn’t been the first time Marino has leant her helping hand to others. She has volunteered her time reading books to the elderly and children. “I had a hard time reading as a child,” says Marino, now an advocate for literacy.

“The selection of books Samantha has chosen is good variety and appeal to different reading levels,” says Roseann Brutico, superintendent at Old Forge. “At the beginning of the new school year teachers will be able to pick out exactly which books they want for their classrooms.”

Brutico says that she was aware of the book drive Marino had planned, but was astonished by the magnitude she actually received. Inside every donated book is a sticker recognizing Marino for the donation.

“After graduating she always kept in touch,” added Brutico. “We are very proud of our former student.”

As her former teacher, Marino notes Brutico as the person who taught her how to read.

“I wanted to give back to my home school,” Marino says. “I knew I wanted to give back from the moment I left.”