LOXLEY, Ala. — Because 22 students in Andrea Grimes 5th grade class at Loxley Elementary read 230 books from October to December, Scholastic Book Club donated one million books to children all over the United States in honor of her class.

Created in 2001 by Scholastic , “Classroom Cares” is a literacy-based program designed to encourage students to read and help others in the process. With the theme “United States of Reading”, the program challenged students in classrooms around the country to read 10 books each and in turn they would donate books to different charity groups, the Scholastic website said.

Grimes came upon the idea after looking at the Scholastic website. “I was just looking on there one day and saw the “classrooms care” program and asked the kids if they wanted to do it and they said they did so we went from there. They were really excited about it and I tracked their progress from week to week and recorded it on the scholastic website,” Grimes said.

Participating in the program served a dual purpose for Grimes by getting the students excited about reading and allowing them to do something for other kids. “I have a very service-minded class and we have done several goodwill projects throughout the year including collecting and donating food and blankets to the animal shelter at Christmas. We try to raise money and do as much as we can to help out in the community.”

This is the first time Grimes’ class has done the “classrooms care” program and is very pleased with the efforts her students put into reading the books. Other service projects are in the works for later in the year, Grimes said.

A nationwide program, “classrooms care” has donated 10 million books since 2001 and 29 million kids have read books for the project. Over one million classrooms have participated and 125 million books have been read, according to the scholastic website.

Scholastic partners with several major charities like “Reach Out and Read”, providing books to pediatrician’s offices around the country and in clinics and hospitals, “Save the Children” giving books to low-income schools and libraries in rural areas that may not have access to them otherwise and the “Pajama Program” a nonprofit agency that provides books and pajamas ot kids in 30 states from preschool to middle school. Age-appropriate books are selected for each charity, the website said.

For 60 years, Scholastic Book Clubs have been providing books for students through catalogues to schools across the country.