Basketball team takes time out to read to kids
Durrall Peterson has hit 3-pointers, pulled down rebounds and even played a little point guard for the Aggies this year, but Friday at Adams Elementary he was in a whole different court: reading “Knuffle Bunny” to groups of small children.
The project, which also featured the reading talents of Jaycee Carroll and defensive lineman Alan Bishop, was a project for an MHR class that came about when Dana Tran, a junior majoring in finance and economics, merged groups with MJ Tran.
“Actually our groups started out as being two separate groups,” MJ Tran said. “My group thought of the book drive idea and Dana’s group wanted to do a benefit concert, so we combined the groups and put it all together into one huge project.”
After a brief introduction during which Bishop told the kids he likes to “hit people and make them cry,” Peterson and Bishop let them choose from a stack of picture books. “Knuffle Bunny” was the most popular selection.
“I’ve got two younger sisters and one of my passions is always to work with kids. Anytime I can interact with kids, it brings a bunch of joy to me,” Peterson said.
Everyone involved in the project talked about the importance of literacy. Dana Tran said, “Literacy is very important. Everything is communication today. You need to be literate and you need to read and to write. This is all about trying to get kids in elementary schools to understand that literacy is important and not only is it important, it’s also fun.”
Peterson concurred, saying, “That’s one of the things about being an American, learning how to read and write. If you can’t read, you can’t get too many places in life.”
Dana and MJ’s project was popular with the kids, as well. Hunter Scott Hundley, age 8, said he had a great time and he likes to go to Aggie games, where “watching them do good” is his favorite part.
At the end of the day, Dana Tran said all the effort and pulling strings to get Aggie players there had been worth it.
“Everything came together and everything turned out really great. I think it was better than expected. We had a really great turnout, everyone loves the basketball players. All the kids loved it and all the volunteers really enjoyed it.”
-graham@cc.usu.edu