November 14, 2006 - Rider Participates in National Young Readers Day
November 14, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
College Baseball
Rider Participates in National Young Readers Day
LAWRENCEVILLE—The Rider baseball team, as part of the MAAC Gives Back and the Rider Athletics Partners in a Caring Community program, participated in the National Young Readers Day by sending three student-athletes to read to children at the Woodrow Wilson Elementary School in Trenton on Tuesday afternoon.
Sophomore pitchers Mike DiPietropolo (Pilesgrove, N.J./Woodstown), Jimmer Kennedy (Levittown, Pa./Holy Ghost Prep) and Dan Sasso (Bordentown, N.J./Bordentown) read to over 75 kindergarten through second grade students during the two-hour session.
“It is great for Rider Athletics and the baseball team to want to be involved in the community around them,” said Mary Walsh who is an AmeriCorps VISTA with EducationWorks, the nonprofit organization which manages the afterschool program at Wilson. “In working with these children, the students now have someone to look up to and see the things that they can achieve in their lives. Rider gives us good role models to bring into our schools.”
“If we are going to preach as a department that our student-athletes should be role models, then you need to put them in situations where they will be looked up to as role models,” said Director of Athletics Don Harnum. “In this case, what a thrill for children this age and my daughter is also their age, to see role models that are in college and particularly our student-athletes.”
“It is good for us to participate and help out in the community,” said Kennedy who is majoring in Business at Rider. “It puts our program and athletics overall in a positive light. It was neat to see how excited the kids were to see us and have us read to them. It was also an important topic having the kids talk about reading and how much they like to read because it is such an important area of their education.”
National Young Readers Day is a day that was created by Pizza Hut and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in 1989 as a way to celebrate literacy in schools.
“It is good for us to get out and show that being an athlete involves being a student first,” said DiPietropolo who is majoring in Business. “Student-athletes are looked up to but we are regular people and have to do the same things that everyone else has to. It’s good to give back to the community. The kids were excited, engaged and involved in what we were doing and it was good to see them smile and participate and maybe we’ll get some young fans out of it.”
“It’s good for Rider overall because we aren’t just a baseball team,” said Sasso who is a Marketing major. “Today reminds us that it is a privilege to be a student-athlete and how important it is to give back. As athletes we are part of the community and for the kids they see that if they work hard and do the right things, they have a chance to become a Division I student-athlete and seeing us today gives them something to shoot for.”
“The student-athletes at Rider don’t have to be doing this,” Walsh added. “They could be doing anything else and they chose to help with their surrounding community and reached out to these children to give them a special day and we greatly appreciate it.”
“Any time we can get involved with the local schools it is a privilege,” said head coach Barry Davis. “To be asked to participate in this event shows the kind of athletics program that we have at Rider and for the players to take their time to do this shows the kind of person that they are as well. We hope to continue to have a relationship with the schools in Trenton and the surrounding community in Mercer County.”
The 20 Bronc varsity teams, under the direction of Associate Athletic Director Karin Torchia, participate in various events during the year including the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and the Toys for Tots Campaign.
“The student-athletes reading to the kids and literacy overall is a topic that I take personally,” Harnum added. “I was fortunate to have grown up in a family where education was valued heavily and I think that some of the reading and writing skills have declined over the years with the advancement of the internet. Reading to children and young people opens their minds and they learn those values from their parents and role models and I think it is such an important skill that has been over looked and therefore has declined a little. We take the community service seriously. It is a big part of the education of our student-athletes and it’s a great way to get the Rider name and visibility out in the public in a positive way.”
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Sophomore pitchers Dan Sasso, Mike DiPietropolo and Jimmer Kennedy at National Young Readers Day
