Former first lady’s foundation grant to benefit RHS media center

“When I started looking into the grant, I discovered that the committee that selected the grant recipients wanted the schools that applied to have a 90 percent free and reduced lunch rate and RHS was around 57 percent,” Nale said.

“I decided to apply anyway but I wasn’t expecting to hear anything back.”

Nale, who was in her first year as the school’s media center specialist at the time, went back to her daily routine while continuing to learn more about her new position. The grant was on her mind, but she didn’t expect much.

Then, during the last 15 minutes of the last day of school this past May, she received an e-mail from the grant committee.

“The e-mail said RHS had received the grant and I just started to scream,” Nale said. “I just couldn’t believe it.”

The e-mail stated that RHS would receive the grant, but it did not list how much the grant was for.

“I knew that the grant could be up to $6,000 but I tried not to get my hopes up because we could only receive $500.”

A couple weeks after receiving the e-mail notification, the check came in the mail.

“When I opened the check and saw that it was for the full $6,000 I just couldn’t believe it,” Nale said. “It was such a wonderful surprise.”

The grant RHS received was given through The Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries and was one of 188 grants given to schools throughout the nation.

Only three other schools in Alabama received the grant and RHS was the only school in North Alabama to receive one.

“I was just so thankful to have received that money,” Nale said. “We haven’t received any funding from the state for the past two years, and it has really been a struggle to raise money to keep the library running.”

When Nale found out that the former first lady herself would be coming to Florence at the end of August to promote her memoir “Spoken from the Heart,” Nale knew she had to be there.

“I wanted to thank Laura Bush in person and let her know how much that grant was going to help our school library,” Nale said.

Nale purchased tickets to the fundraiser event and her husband, William, got her a ticket to the book signing held at Books-A-Million.

“I was really hoping to have my picture made with her, but it didn’t work out,” Nale said. “But I did get to tell her in person how thankful I was for the grant and how much it would help us.”

Nale purchased two copies of Bush’s memoir; one that she would circulate at the RHS library and one that Bush signed that Nale would put on display.

“This grant helped us buy lots of books for our Accelerated Reader program,” Nale said. “We were able to purchase books that could appeal to all types of readers, which gets more children involved in reading, and we just couldn’t have done it without this grant.”