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Lakewood District students will have a unique opportunity this fall to build community, share their voice, strengthen literacy, promote their schools and learn more about the newspaper’s role, all through a partnership between The Simple Gifts Fund and The Sampson Independent.
Aptly called the Lakewood District Community Schools Literacy Partnership, the initiative will provide a free local newspaper to every Lakewood District student and their parents, as well as staff members, every Wednesday beginning Sept. 2 and running throughout the school year.
Carla Sutton, who recently retired after years as the Hobbton High School media specialist, will be the educator liaison leading the project. Teaming with Sampson Independent publisher Sherry Matthews, the pair will be opening doors for students to become active participants in the newspaper, drawing editorial cartoons, taking photographs, writing stories and, in turn, using the paper to learn more about what goes on in their communities, turning to it rather than just social media as a means of garnering and sharing information pertinent to their schools and their towns.
“I am excited to collaborate with The Sampson Independent on this innovative project, and I can’t wait to help share the stories, accomplishments, and everyday successes that make the Lakewood district a special place,” Sutton said. “Together, I hope we can build a culture of literacy that not only benefits students today, but also strengthens the entire community for years to come.”
In addition to the weekly newspaper, The Sampson Independent will publish a student-generated special Schools and Community insert every nine weeks featuring news and accomplishments from across the Lakewood District. This student-produced magazine will showcase student writing, artwork, and school events. It will be produced and designed by the students.
“We are even giving the students and teachers from those schools the opportunity to name their newspaper, design its masthead and develop its focus each quarter,” Matthews said. “It’s such an exciting prospect for the paper and the community. I am thrilled to be a part of such a wonderful idea that we all believe will bridge the gap between the schools, the towns and community members in the Lakewood district. I see this as a tremendous project that teaches parents and students the importance of their local paper, how to use it for their benefit, and how it can promote so many good things going on in the Lakewood District schools and communities.
“I cannot thank those with Simple Gifts enough for partnering with us to make this project a reality. The possibilities are endless, and, we hope, will be the first of many such projects we do throughout both school systems in the coming years.”
Sutton, who worked with the county school system for 30 years, will serve as the teacher liaison for this initiative and will work with Lakewood district educators to encourage lifelong reading habits, strengthen literacy skills and build stronger connections between the schools and the community.
Wednesday, Sutton and Matthews met with the four Lakewood District principals, sharing ideas and talking about ways they can use the newspaper to promote their schools, staff, programs and, especially students.
“It was a very engaging meeting,” Matthews said. “It was such a joy seeing the excitement these principals have for this project and how they believe it can help their students. We are very fortunate in this county to have wonderful public schools with caring administrators, teachers and staffs who come to work every day to truly help students succeed.”
Sutton concurred.
“The enthusiasm we saw from the Lakewood District principals made me even more excited about this project. I can’t wait to celebrate all the wonderful things happening in these schools and work alongside their outstanding teachers to create opportunities that benefit our students and our entire community.”
Those principals said they were thrilled that Simple Gifts and The Sampson Independent were willing to provide such a project to their district, and see it, they said, as a way to increase the chances of academic success for their students.
“As a principal, I know that strong readers become confident learners, and initiatives like this help ensure every child has the opportunity to succeed,” attested Roseboro Elementary principal Eric Brady. “I am incredibly grateful to The Sampson Independent and Simple Gifts for bringing our schools, families, and community together around something as important as literacy. When schools and community partners work hand in hand, the impact extends far beyond academics; it strengthens families, builds brighter futures for our students, and reinforces the belief that every child deserves the opportunity to thrive. This investment in literacy is truly an investment in the future of Sampson County.”
The other three principals — Becky Hines of Roseboro-Salemburg Middle, Whitney Poper of Salemburg Elementary and Nathan Chabot, Lakewood High — agreed, all sharing their own excitement over the doors this type of project can open for the students, the parents, the schools and the community.
Poper said with a large focus now on different text types, the introduction of this new initiative came at exactly the right time. “With that new focus, the newspaper can add another layer for our students and families,” the Salemburg principal noted.
Chabot pointed to a growing concern educators have at the high school level with students having little interest in reading anything, noting that the literary project had the potential to turn that around at Lakewood High.
“I’m very excited about the possibilities,” Chabot said. “So many of them have so little idea about the newspaper and what it offers. This will provide them a way to engage in a different way … the community, too. It will be a real world experience that I think they need.”
While Hines said she loved all aspects of the new project, it was the idea of parents being able to open up a newspaper and see their child’s achievements, something they wrote or produced, and knowing the pride they will feel that has her most excited.
“It is a way for the entire community to see all the good things we do. They can see what their children did, what other children are doing. We are one community, and our schools are uniquely tied together. We are all Leopards, and having the newspaper promoting all the things we are doing will allow them to more easily see that connection,” Hines stressed.
Believing in public education since she began as reporter years ago, Matthews, a winner of multiple N.C. School Bell Awards for promotion of public schools and public education, said it was the desire to tell the good news stories about the schools that became the driving force for the idea that evolved into the literacy project.
“I support public education and believe in what educators do for students as much as I believe in a local newspaper’s value in a community. Combining the two only seems fitting,” Matthews said, stressing how important she believed both were to the literacy of a county’s residents.
“While social media has it place in our society, it should not ever be a substitute for a local newspaper, which is the historic record for a community, paints a broad picture of what goes on in our towns, in our government and within our schools and how all those things are tied together to make this community strong. It also details the services offered and the many, many activities that go on. It’s not pigeon-holed the way social media is, so everyone gets to see what is going on across the county. I am excited to see what I hope will be a whole new set of readers discover how valuable their local newspaper can be.”