Scarborough Primary School student organises Readathon to raise money for Dyslexia

The school will host a ‘readathon’ to raise money for a dyslexia charity set up by Anthony Maslin and Rin Norris to honour their three children Mo (12) Evie (10) and Otis (8) who were killed along with their grandfather Nick Norris when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine earlier this year.

Cristian’s mother Jodie Haslinger said she was extremely proud of her son, who had developed the idea to support the Mo, Evie and Otis Foundation as a student councillor.

‘Cristian was best mates with Mo and he’s a councillor at school. They were asked to organise an event themselves to raise money for a charity and Cristian chose this one,’ Ms Haslinger said.

‘The readathon goes for 10 days and the children will be getting sponsors for however many books they can read in that certain amount of time, then the funds are collected and go straight to the charity.’

Students will read as many books as they can and ask friends and family to make a donation for every book read.

Cristian said he hoped to read as many books as possible, and thanked his mother and vice principal Anthony Middleton for their help on the project.

‘I wanted to raise funds to support the foundation set up in my mate’s name to help children with dyslexia,’ Cristian said.

Ms Haslinger said Cristian, who attended kindergarten and the first three years of primary school with Mo, believed his friend would have done the same thing.

‘Mo was the boy that would do anything for anyone and I guess Cristian just wants to honour his memory and do what Mo would have done,’ she said.

The readathon runs from November 10 to 21.