Prospect Sierra, a local El Cerrito private school recently gave a wonderful gift to the less fortunate kids of West County. As part of their Earth Day public service projects, Prospect Sierra families conducted a book drive for gently-used children’s books for West County Reads. This is truly recycling at its truest form.
The outpouring of books from PS families was extremely heart-warming. And PS formed a book sorting group the next Saturday to help us sort the books to make sure they were ready to get out into the community immediately. The school’s very energetic band of volunteers sorted 54 boxes of children’s books. I would estimate this would total at least 6,000 books. While maybe a quarter of these were books from West County Reads existing supplies (PS agreed to help us sort some prior donations), well over 4,000 books were from the PS Earth Day book drive. We normally give out about 6,000 books per year…so this has put us on a path to perhaps double that total this year.
West County Reads had immediate plans to get these books out to families and children that would cherish them. Just one week after the books were sorted, a large portion were earmarked for the Sunday, May 4 Cinco de Mayo event on 23rd St in the heart of the Richmond and San Pablo. Other books will be given away as part of our 2nd annual summer reading program in North Richmond.
I am always moved by the act of families giving a set of children’s books; selected with such love and cherished in shared moments between parent and child, and then passed on (perhaps with a touch of nostalgic reluctance) so such cherished moments can be shared again by other families. What a wonderful, wonderful thing the parents and children of Prospect Sierra have done! The West County Reads board deeply appreciates all those who donated and those that participated in this great project.
– Kevin Hufferd, Chair, West County Reads
