BOOKS AND BEYOND ROTARY CLUBS' SCHOOL GIFTS SPEAK VOLUMES.Byline: Peggy Hager Staff Writer PALMDALE - Youngsters in schools across the Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley are getting an unexpected gift: hundreds of books donated by local Rotary clubs. The Antelope Valley Sunrise, Palmdale, Lancaster, Lancaster West and Rosamond Rotary clubs are donating an estimated 4,000 books through the Reading by 9 program. ``To be the beneficiary of all these books, that's wonderful,'' said Ana Verde Plaza School Principal Todd Cherland, whose school is due to get 400 books. ``The more books we can get in the hands of kids, the better off the kids will be.'' Also receiving books are Joshua Hills Joshua Hill can refer to several people:
Although the Reading by 9 program is aimed at kindergarten through third-graders, the Rotary clubs are also donating books to Antelope Valley College Antelope Valley College is a comprehensive community college located in Lancaster, California, USA. It is operated by the Antelope Valley Community College District, with a primary service area of 1,945 square miles covering portions of Los Angeles and Kern counties. and to Antelope Valley, Desert Winds, Lancaster, Rosamond, Highland, Littlerock, Palmdale, Quartz Hill, Mojave and Paraclete high schools Paraclete High School is a Catholic High School in Lancaster, CA operated independently of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 186 seniors graduated in the 2006-2007 school year. . Desert Sand and Henry Hearns charter schools also received books. The books are purchased from Scholastic Inc., which sells the books at about half the normal price. The books are given to individual teachers, not specifically the schools, to be handed out to students however the teachers judge best for encouraging youngsters to read. ``These are books that the teacher can trade, win, give away: however the teacher wants to use them for (their) class,'' said Gary Titcomb, a past president of the Antelope Valley Sunrise Rotary Club. Ana Verde Plaza School was picked for the program after Palmdale Rotary Club President Mike Evinger read newspaper stories about $90,000 in vandalism done to classrooms and offices in January. Three middle school students were arrested after their parents turned them in. ``I was coming up on a deadline to participate and I didn't have a school decided yet ... then the article came out in the paper about the vandalism here, which was quite extensive, and I said, that's my school,'' recalled Evinger. Cherland said he wasn't sure how many books were destroyed by the vandals, but that the amount was in the hundreds. ``It was all teacher property and basically they just take the loss,'' said Cherland. ``Fortunately with other donations, money, more books from other parents, they've pretty much replenished the books so this is up and above from what we would have had otherwise.'' For Rotary club members, coming to the rescue is one of the reasons they exist. ``One of the things we're doing, actually, is we see where the big news is, like the vandalizing here and we jump in and deal with urgent needs right now. Because, unfortunately, the bureaucracy takes so long to sort of recycle and get money to schools to refurbish re·fur·bish tr.v. re·fur·bished, re·fur·bish·ing, re·fur·bish·es To make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate. re·fur books and things. Rotary has the ability to leap in right now and do it,'' said Dave Maddock, past president of the Palmdale Rotary Club. ``So many kids today, they need to be able to read to fill out job applications and unfortunately a lot of them don't have that ability.'' A total of 500,000 books will go to Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, schools through five Southern California Rotary districts. CAPTION(S): 3 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Students at the Ana Verde Plaza School in Palmdale read books Tuesday donated by the Palmdale Rotary Club. (2 -- color) Kindergarten teacher Cheryl Piccirilli gives Mackenzie Madrid, 5, a donated book to read Tuesday at Ana Verde Plaza School. (3) Ana Verde Principal Todd Cherland, left, and Rotary President Mike Evinger display books. Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer |
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