Penn State Altoona's Robert E. Eiche Library is part of One Book Blair County, a group awarded a $2,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
One Book Blair County is one of 127 communities nationwide to receive a grant for a Big Read celebration focusing on 16 classic novels. The county's book will be Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," and will be read during April.
Several groups from campus will participate in the celebration. Allied Motion will do a dance event, literature clubs will be reading with senior citizens, there will be a book club on campus, and professors will encourage their students to read the classic novel.
NEA sponsors The Big Read in an effort to boost national reading rates and get people of all ages interested in literature. The latest Big Read grantees represent 38 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The NEA inaugurated the Big Read as a pilot project with 10 communities in 2006. By 2009, approximately 400 communities in the United States will have hosted a Big Read since the program’s launch.
Anyone interested in becoming part of the program can contact Michelle Tomaszewski at (814) 949-5340.