Cape Cod Hill School students read their way to new bikes

NEW SHARON – A reading program sponsored by the local Masons outfitted a number of Cape Cod Hill School students with new bicycles and helmets Monday.

Students cheered their peers from the bleachers as they ran across the gym floor to line up beside their bikes and exchange high-fives with masons. Master Bill Chute, appearing with fellow members of the Franklin Lodge Senior Warden Ray Kelley and Treasurer Charlie Allison, congratulated students for reading so many books.

Students had backed cardboard boxes and Tupperware containers with crumpled slips of paper, each representing a book they had read and a chance at winning a bike. Their peers cheered loudly after each name was drawn by Chute and called out by Principal Darlene Paine, whether they were sitting beside the winner or across the gym.

The Bikes for Books program operates throughout the state with the statewide Masonic organization, the Grand Lodge of Maine, reimbursing local lodges to provide bicycles, helmets and t-shirts to participating elementary school students. At Cape Cod Hill School, Franklin Lodge 123 does the honors.

The program got its start in Maine nine years ago when Mike Theriault proposed the idea to Euclid Masonic Lodge No. 194 in Madison, where he is a past master.

Students that received a bike include:

• Kindergartners Miah Emery and Liam Lawless.
• First graders Evelyn Simons and Colby Fakhoury-Bryant
• Second graders Gracey Mooar and Aiden Ayer
• Third graders Ava Davis and Ricky Lane
• Fourth graders Naomi Lane and Nick Overton
• Fifth graders Jesslyn Sillanpaa and Brandon Ryder