Blackshear Fine Arts Academy received a $3,000 grant from bestselling author James Patterson to support its school library.

In addition, Scholastic Reading Club will match each dollar of Patterson’s donation with points teachers can use to acquire books and other materials for their classrooms. Blackshear was chosen from 27,924 applications throughout the U.S.

“We are thrilled to receive this grant,” said Blackshear librarian Roger Grape. “Since our school is now a fine arts academy, we will be using this money to buy materials to complement our fine arts programming, including dance, drama, Shakespeare, photography, visual arts and music.”

The school was also one of six AISD schools awarded a grant last year from the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries.

As part of an ongoing effort to keep books and reading a No. 1 priority in the U.S., bestselling author James Patterson and Scholastic Reading Club made a commitment to support school libraries nationwide. Last year, Patterson donated $1.75 million to school libraries nationwide, with grants ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 allocated to 467 schools.

“These grants are my humble acknowledgement of some of the terrific work taking place in libraries,” Patterson said.

Patterson joined forces with Scholastic Reading Club to administer funding applications to their network of 62,000 schools and 800,000 teachers. Applicants were asked to fill out an online application posing the question, “What would your school library do with $1,000 to $10,000?”

For a full list of grant recipients, visit scholastic.com/pattersonpartnership.  

Any U.S. school with students from Pre-K to 12th grade was eligible for a grant. To learn more, visit mediaroom.scholastic.com/scholasticreadingclub and follow #PattersonPledge on social media.