READ Preschool

08/13/2025

This is a VERY special story about Camp Tuscaloosa and life with type 1 diabetes (T1D), beautifully captured in this wonderful spread by The Hammonton Gazette. I truly hope you’ll take a moment to read it and share it widely. A huge thank you to The Hammonton Gazette and Savanna Perry for helping raise awareness about T1D and everything we strive to be at Camp Tuscaloosa. An immense thank you as well to my incredible counselors, who joined us without hesitation and have so profoundly changed lives in such a lasting and special way. ❤️

07/17/2025

Please vote in the 2025 Hammy Awards for Mr. Sam! He deserves it!! Sam Seitles is listed under #56 Best Media Personality! Children in Hammonton and surrounding towns love him! Not only is he constantly creating fun at Camp Tuscaloosa and been an amazing teacher at READ Preschool for almost a decade, he's at most of the town's events volunteering and entertaining every year. He's creating events for children and families in our town. He brought pro wrestling back to Hammonton. He's had many of you on his podcasts! He is out in the driveway at Camp Tuscaloosa and at Downtown events dressed as characters for the children. He co-created Blueberry Kids during COVID, a free 5 month long online educational show for children and families to stay connected and learning. Representing Hammonton, he made it all the way onto Jimmy Fallon’s Password Show and won! He has a heart of gold and thinks of others before himself. So I’m asking for everyone to please vote for him. He would appreciate your vote! And he really deserves to win!

ALSO, if you have come to our free Hammonton Lions Spring Fest event each year to help raise money for the type 1 diabetes cause and had a blast with us, please vote for The Hammonton Lions Club under #23 Best Community Focused Business/Organization, #61 Best Most Iconic Organization, and #65 Best Nonprofit Organization. The Hammonton Lions Club does so many great things for our community, including helping causes such as diabetes, hunger, childhood cancer, vision, and the environment. They are literally changing lives. Mr. Sam and Ms. Lisa are among the many dedicated members and officers of this wonderful club who as a club really deserve the vote. There is enormous generosity, heart, love, dedication, and community in the Hammonton Lions Club and they are some of the biggest hearted people we know. So even if you haven’t been to our event, you have an idea of how much they do to help others. We would be appreciative of your vote for the Hammonton Lions Club.

Thank you so much!! ❤️

HEY HAMMONTON 🤩 — BUONA FESTA AND HAPPY HAMMYS! 🌟

It’s that time again — voting is officially open!! Use the QR code or link below to show some love to your local favorites!

✅ VOTE HERE: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2025Hammys

⏳ Voting ends August 13th!

06/20/2025

We have both happy and sad news to share. It concerns only READ Preschool, not Camp Tuscaloosa. We have decided not to reopen READ Preschool for the 2025-2026 school year and beyond. Times have changed since we took over READ in 2016, when families depended on quality, licensed private preschools before the opening of public pre-k. The opening of public pre-k has had an unavoidable and unsurprising impact on READ’s enrollment.

READ has been a huge part of our lives, as we have dedicated ourselves to its mission with full heart and soul for almost a decade. Some of the hardest times, such as during COVID, were also chances to continue to be there for our community, both by opening READ to older age children and creating “Blueberry Kids,” a free online educational show to keep our community’s children connected and learning. So even during the hard times, we have wonderful memories. READ has always striven to be a part of most of Hammonton’s downtown events. Our dedication to Hammonton has been and will continue to be unwavering.

To say this decision is wrenching is an understatement. We have put everything of ourselves into READ and its families. We will forever treasure the innumerable memories made teaching our community’s children. We will always take pride in the fact that READ students entered elementary school more than prepared socially, academically, and emotionally, and that we were a safe and happy place for families when they needed that the most. We will also treasure the bond that we maintain with READ students and families year after year.

While this has been a difficult decision, we are also excited to start a new chapter in life. We see this as an opportunity for us to pursue additional passions while continuing to provide awesome summers for our community’s children at Camp Tuscaloosa.

It will come as no surprise that Ms. Lisa will continue to dedicate herself to spreading awareness about type 1 diabetes, as well as working toward publishing her book. She will continue doing the year-round considerable behind the scenes work for Camp Tuscaloosa, as well as continuing her passionate and deep involvement with the children who attend.

Mr. Sam is eager to return to teaching elementary school children, which he did prior to owning READ. He is pursuing an elementary school teaching position and will continue his total involvement with children at Camp Tuscaloosa. He will also be helping with the year-round work of running the camp.

We thank everyone who has supported us at READ Preschool over the years and look forward to continuing to see our community’s children at Camp Tuscaloosa and around town. We do not see this so much as an end, but as a continuing source of wonderful memories and an opportunity to pursue other passions.

With love,
Ms. Lisa and Mr. Sam

06/10/2025

06/01/2025

43rd Annual Graduation and Preschool Play! ❤️

06/01/2025

A beautiful day for READ’s 43rd Annual Graduation and Preschool Play!