EVERGREEN PARK, IL – The tradition of Evergreen Park Community High School seniors teaming up with first graders at Evergreen Park elementary schools to promote literacy continued this month when a trio of Mustangs visited Southwest, Northwest, Southeast and Northeast elementary schools in Evergreen Park Elementary School District 124.

Maddie Bruno and Maeve Faulkner, EPCHS seniors who are part of the school’s education internship program teamed with their senior classmate Rosebud Summers, a volunteer and reading buddy at the Evergreen Park Public Library, to serve as the 2024 readers in “Book Buddies,” which has become an annual tradition in Evergreen Park.

The three EPCHS seniors delivered already wrapped children’s books to the students at all four schools and read one of the books to each class.

Book Buddies is the brainchild of the EPCHS award-winning Learning Resource Center team of Dr. Tina Ward, media specialist, and Library Assistant Karen Hewitt. The pair started the program in 2018 because “we wanted every kid to have a new book to open on Christmas,” Ward said.