CARTOON NETWORK PROVES TO BE A VALUABLE SCHOOL PARTNER.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

BURBANK - Robert Romero brings a sense of play to his work at the Cartoon Network Studios, with a beanbag chair planted near his desk and Beatles figurines from the Yellow Submarine movie decorating his cubicle.

But there's another way Romero, 33, stays connected to the youth market gobbling up the cartoons created at the Burbank studio. Once a week, Romero leaves his job as a production coordinator to offer reading tips to a third-grader named Amanda with a tendency to skip over punctuation.

``If nothing else, it helps me out with work here because I remember what it's like to be a kid,'' Romero said.

Romero is one of 25 Cartoon Network employees who volunteer regularly at R.L. Stevenson Elementary, either tutoring or mentoring students one-on-one, reading to classes or teaching arts and crafts. The volunteers go to the school on their lunch breaks from once a week to once a month.

While this is only the second year the company has been directly involved in helping Burbank Unified School District students, last month it was named the school district's ``Partner of the Year.''

``In the four short years they've been here, they really embraced the community and our schools,'' said Goldie Bemel, BUSD director of child development programs.

The Cartoon Network Studios opened its doors in Burbank in May 2000, taking over a telephone company building at 300 N. Third St.

The phone company used the bunker-like building to house equipment. And although the building retains some features of a warehouse, such as exposed air ducts, it also has natural lighting and a roof sun deck used for barbecues in the summer.

In cubicles adorned with everything from toys to prints of old travel posters and Post-it note sketches of cartoon monsters, artists work at computers or rotating discs on the seven shows produced at the studio.

Erik Girndt, 32, who is originally from Hawaii, put up bamboo on the walls of his cubicle, and small tiki torches as bookends for his door.

``I had an inflatable palm tree but it was just too big,'' said Girndt, one of a dozen animators for ``Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.''

Most of the studio's 200 employees are in their 20s or 30s, and the studio's youthfulness shows in the graffiti management allowed to go up along one of the building's staircases.

But playfulness and a connection to kids is a characteristic that Cartoon Network employees of all ages display.

Receptionist Geri Kelly, another studio employee who volunteers at Stevenson Elementary, worked for 30 years as a birthday clown. She reads to a classroom of children once a month.

``I have grandchildren who have gotten older, and I just enjoy children,'' Kelly said.

Besides working with the school district, Cartoon Network volunteers have also painted murals in institutions that serve children.

Last year, about 30 volunteers from the company went to Help for Brain Injured Children to draw cartoon characters on the ceilings that children at the La Habra-based center can look at from their beds.

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Brian Miller, general manager of animators at Cartoon Network in Burbank, volunteers in the community, one of 25 network employees who do so.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer