Rotary Raises Funds For Library Books

Rotary Past President Frank Newell, a Poly High School alumnus and local attorney, raised approximately $46,000 in donations and matching funds for Reading by 9 books during this week's Long Beach Rotary Club meeting. During the meeting, Newell and his fellow Rotarians solicited more than $13,000 in donations from the audience in less than seven minutes. The Los Angeles Times will provide $10,000 in matching funds, and Scholastic, Inc. will match the entire amount dollar-for-dollar, bringing the total to $46,000. These funds will buy thousands of books for Long Beach Unified School District schools with the lowest book-to-pupil ratios in their libraries. "The wonderful thing about this program is that the librarians get to choose the books and how they are used," Newell said. Long Beach Rotary was honored by the Los Angeles Times earlier this year for the club's previous contribution of tens of thousands of books to elementary school libraries in the district. Rotary's donation of nearly $100,000, when matched, purchased $200,000 in new library books selected by local school librarians. The club also was awarded 500 new books for Cesar Chavez Elementary School by the Los Angeles Times for raising funds to buy more library books for local schools than any other Rotary Club in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino counties. Each elementary school library in the district has received from Rotary 1,000 new library books over the past several years.