EDITORIAL

“Affect not as some do that bookish ambition to be stored with books

and have well-furnished libraries, yet keep their heads empty of

knowledge; to desire to have many books, and never to use them, is like a

child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is

sleeping.”

-- Henry Peacham, “The Compleat Gentleman”

Ah, books. What would we do without them?

Hopefully, we’ll never know.

But one thing we do know is many of the young children who attend the

financially struggling Oak View Elementary School unfortunately don’t

know how or have a hard time reading them. Thankfully, there is help on

the way. And we’re behind the effort 100%.

The Rotary Club of Huntington Beach and the Huntington Beach Sunrise

Rotary Club are undertaking an effort to raise money to buy recreational

reading books for kindergarten through third-grade classes at the school.

The clubs have set up a fund of $3,000 to act as matching funds for

public contributions to purchase a minimum of 2,000 books for the school.

The money will be matched through the Los Angeles Times Reading by 9

initiative.

We urge our readers to give serious consideration to this effort. We

think they will find, like we did, how a little bit of effort can go so

far.

For example, a $10 donation to the program, with the Reading by 9

match, can buy 12 books. A $20 donation combined with the matching money

can put 30 books on the shelf.

Oak View Principal Karen Catabijan naturally was delighted to hear

that her school had been chosen.

“We’ve been working in partnership with the Rotarians for the last

couple of years and they have always been good to Oak View,” she told the

Independent. “They have been wanting to sponsor some type of program at

our school and they are very excited to lend financial support. We are

very excited, too. Our students really do appreciate all that the

Rotarians have done for us.”

They will appreciate everything our readers will do, as well.