First Lady Mary Pat Christie visits The Children's Institute in Verona

New Jersey First Lady Mary Pat Christie visited The Children's Institute in Verona Thursday to tour the school and deliver a 500-book donation for summer reading.

She also was the recipient of the Humanitarian of the Year Award for her advocacy work with the special needs population, presented May 31 by the Association for Schools and Agencies for the Handicapped's (ASAH) .

The Children’s Institute is a private, non-profit school teaching children and young adults, ages 3-21, who are autistic or have related disabilities.

“It is a great privilege and a wonderful opportunity to be introduced to Mrs. Christie, who is such an important advocate for those on the autism spectrum and with related disabilities,” explained Dr. Bruce Ettinger, CEO/Superintendent of The Children’s Institute. 

Christie's visit included a tour of the facility where she learned about the different programs and services offered to the students.

In a history class, she was able to sit in on a short lesson and take a quiz with the students while also fielding student questions on a variety of topics.

Students wanted to know about her role as the governor's wife, how often she meets the president and what it's like to be married to someone famous.

When one student asked if she would ever run for governor, she replied, “My husband is doing such a great job as governor, I wouldn't want to run against him.”

“My tour was amazing, I was impressed by the film production,” said Christie. “They have editing and film production and I understand they have done some of the town's video. Its pretty remarkable, the quality of the video they are producing here.”

After taking the tour, Christie presented a 500-book donation from Scholastic as part of the 6th Annual Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. The challenge is a free program designed by the Scholastic publishing company to motivate students to read during their summer break.

“The people at The Children's Institute do a great job,” said Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. “For her to be involved in programs such as these are very helpful.  As far as bringing people in that can contribute dollars and books to help our kids, I think its great.”

Christie, along with 47 other governors' spouses and the governors of Illinois, Vermont and Arizona are serving as “Reading Ambassadors” to help reinforce how important summer reading is in the learning process.

“The 'Reading Ambassadors' are another venue to promote reading amongst our children,” said Christie. “When children are not stimulated throughout the summer they really do lose their focus on some of what they learned the year before. The goal is to get them to read four books over the summer and if we can keep children reading it really goes very far to making their start in September very effective.”

Following her tour of the school, ASAH Executive Director, Gerard Theirs presented Christie with the award. 

“We are deeply honored to present this award to Mrs. Christie to recognize her strong commitment to those with disabilities in our state,” said Theirs.

“I think the parents that are dealing with these challenges every day are much more worthy but if I can use it to promote what I'm doing then I am happy to do that,” Christie said as she accepted her award.

Christie is an advocate for literacy as well as autism awareness and works to bring a greater understanding of the spectrum of developmental disabilities.

“My goal is to create more awareness and break down the barriers that we have when we encounter these children,” she said. “The more we talk about it and promote some of the positive things that are going on, I think that we will move towards that end.”