“It made me cry happy tears,” McRae Elementary sixth grade language arts teacher Amy Batchelor said. “I was going into the meeting to talk about online school and then all of a sudden, they jumped in and told me I was getting the grant. It was so nice and I was so excited and happy that I started crying.”

Batchelor is using the $500 grant to purchase 22 sets of the “Hunger Games” trilogy books. Her project is a nine-week project centered around the young adult dystopian novel series written by Suzanne Collins. Students will be placed into districts, much like the districts system in the story of “Hunger Games,” and then tributes will be selected.

“I love reading and I want my students to love it, too,” Batchelor said. “This grant allows me to enrich my students’ lives with reading in a very special and unique way.”

Read more: The Clay Today