School: Loyal - School Hosts Book Fair (2022)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Zarnke

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 11/30/2022

Loyal School Hosts Book Fair (2022)

Loyal School Hosts Book Fair, Financial Literacy Event

By Stephanie Dayton

Thursday, Nov. 17, the Loyal School District held the first-ever Financial Literacy event, as well as the first in-person Scholastic Book Fair since 2020. The scholastic book fair was held in the school’s new library space. The Loyal School District combined the elementary and high school library units into one location to allow for a bigger and more spacious area.

The Scholastic Book Fair raised over $2,000. This money helps the school district buy more books for the new library. In addition to the book fair, the school also held a fundraiser to donate money for Angel Tree, so every child may have a book to read. Thi8s year, the fundraiser was a ‘penny donation.” Each class had a jar for students to bring pennies in to donate. Miss Jenae’s 4K class won the competition, raising $83 for the children and also earned an ice cream treat.

During the book fair, Jessica Zarnke was busy working hard with the financial literacy event. Zarnke has been teaching financial literacy at the Loyal School District for four years and is hoping to reach more children and parents through these financial literacy events.

The Thursday event was the first one the school has held. This even included a guest speaker for parents, as well as activities for children regarding the topic of budgeting. The goal for this event is to help families learn the importance of financial literacy through activities aimed toward specific age groups.

For parents the speaker provided information regarding the importance of budgeting. While the parents were in one room, the children were in another, leaning about budgeting as well. Zarnke set up activities to learn about budgeting in an age-appropriate and fun way.

For one of the activities, Zarnke gave the older children the task of opening “break-out boxes.” Once open, these boxes included tasks for children like how to budget a paycheck, grocery shopping on a budget, paying bills and more.

For the younger children, Zarnke set up a “grocery” spot, where the children could pretend to grocery shop with a certain amount of money. “Both of these activities helped children learn the importance of budgeting.

By learning these important lessons early in life, children are more likely to succeed as adults. Zarnke hopes to make the financial literacy event a recurring occasion. The plan if to have another event in the spring, which will cover the topic of retirement and savings.