LAKEWOOD — Two Georgian Court University alumnae were among the Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex county recipients of 10 grants from OceanFirst Bank. Awarded by the OceanFirst Foundation’s new School Library-Media Center Enhancement Grant program, each grant totaled $25,000.

Georgian Court alumnae Rebecca D’Aleo, a media specialist at Cedar Creek Elementary School, Lacey, and Lisa Crate, a media specialist at the Carl W. Goetz Middle School, Jackson, were honored at a reception in September at the Crystal Point Yacht Club, Point Pleasant.

According to a press release, D’Aleo’s application to the grant program outlined her plan to offer fun incentives to inspire students to read. Her effort included purchasing approximately 1,300 books, and then printing a deck of cards for each student with the titles of the books on the cards. Students received journals to track their reading and were awarded medals based on the number of books they had read.

Crate’s program, Boys Open Up to Nonfiction-Centered Experiences (BOUNCE), focused on encouraging middle school boys to read. She used the grant to update the sports section of the library, as well as acquire new titles about science, the supernatural, animals and the most recent version of the Guinness Book of World Records.

Other schools in Ocean County that received grants included Lakewood High School and the New Egypt Elementary School.

Lakewood High School received a grant for its Electronic Media Enrichment Center. An examination of the library’s collection in the areas of math and remedial language arts revealed that the math collection contains 49 books with an average age of 1981 and that there are no remedial language arts books. The school will purchase books and software geared toward these content areas along with the computer hardware and tables.

The library will help students help themselves through the creation of an Electronic Media Enrichment Center that will provide students private time to improve their language arts and math skills. This center will consist of 14 computers with math and language arts software.

The New Egypt Elementary School received a grant for its “Library Oasis: Gateway to Learning.” The school will use its grant to enhance the library’s book collection and atmosphere and also offer special activities throughout the school year.

The school has identified the books that are most requested by students and staff and they are non-fiction. They further identified that these requests connect directly to their community’s location, history and population (books on local agricultural and rural heritage, farming in New Jersey, tractors, farm animals, gardening, sheep shearing, the dairy industry, the Atlantic Ocean, the Barnegat Bay, fishing, clamming, boating, the ocean, ecology, the Pine Barrens, the military etc.)

A few examples of what the school plans to accomplish with the grant include: a new mural project integrating art into the school library, the creation of a reading “oasis” with large palm trees made out of wood to store and display new books and thematic units, the purchase of new comfortable chairs and CD players with headphones for students to enjoy music and books on tape, the purchase of new magazines. Additionally, the school will hold author visits and special events highlighting Read Across America Day and family reading.

The school will create its own book that students will write and illustrate during the course of the year guided by the classroom teacher, the literature enrichment teacher and the art teacher. The blank books will be filled with the student’s best handwriting and original illustrations that are based on the student’s view of life where they live.

OceanFirst said its grant program is an effort to enrich the learning experience and encourage a love of reading and learning among students in the OceanFirst service area. The foundation received 133 applications from eligible public and private schools, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The foundation has contributed more than $13 million to more than 600 local charities in Ocean, Monmouth and Middlesex counties since its inception.