East Coffee Elementary School Receives Grant and DARE Students Graduate

East Coffee Elementary School received a $3,000 grant from bestselling author James Patterson to support its library. In addition, Scholastic matched these dollars with bonus points for the teacher who submitted the grant, fifth-grade teacher Melissa Leedy. East Coffee Elementary was selected from over 27,000 applications. This year alone, Mr. Patterson personally donated $1.75 million to school libraries nationwide. The full list of grant recipients is available online at www.scholastic.com/pattersonpartnership .

East Coffee Elementary fifth-graders recently graduated from the DARE program sponsored by the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department. During the semester-long course, Officer Morris Vanattia taught the students how to say no to drugs and violence through Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE). East Coffee is thankful to Officer Vanattia for his 18 years of service to this important program.