“I felt like Santa Claus.”
San Joaquin College of Law Facilities Manager Rick Rodriguez found himself and his truck swarmed by 20 eager students of Cole Elementary as he delivered the 529 books from the annual Elizabeth O’Neill Book Drive. How eager? Rodriguez says “I never saw kids fight over wanting to carry boxes.”
The kids’ excitement was exceeded only by that of Cole Librarian Carrie Haines. She was able to buy nearly a thousand books last year, but admits she has “nothing on the bottom shelves at all” throughout the school library. Cole will be splitting the bounty of books with fellow Title I School Mountain View Elementary.
In addition to beefing up the shelves, Haines says some will go towards a special library for kids on home hospice, duplicates be used to help build classroom libraries, and even destroyed books will be used for art projects in the Program for the Acquisition of Language and Social Skills (PALS).
Over the past decade, the O’Neill Drive has delivered 3,923 books to Title I elementary schools in Clovis Unified. SJCL would like to thank everyone who contributed to this welcome success.