Calaveras Elementary School

On Thursday, May 31st, Books4All donated $1000 in new books and school supplies, as well as 300 used books collected from friends and family, to Calaveras Elementary School in Hollister, CA.  The funds were obtained from Books4All’s Thanksgiving benefit concert, which raised over $1300 in total.  Calaveras Elementary School is a small public elementary school with around 500 students enrolled in grades K through 8, the vast majority of which are from low-income families of Hispanic descent. The school, however, especially its library program, is still grossly underfunded.  When I walked through the front doors, I was greeted warmly by the office staff.  After unloading all the boxes of books and school supplies, I sat down with the school librarian Ms. Claudia Stanton to talk about the situation.  She told me that on average, she is granted a measly $1200 annually in school funding for the purchase of new books.  In other words, my one-time donation to Calaveras Elementary is almost as much as Ms. Stanton is allocated every year!  With a student population in need and a well-qualified, genuinely caring staff, it is heartbreaking that a lack of public funding is responsible for the inadequacy in early education.  Calaveras Elementary will continue to receive annual donations from Books4All.  If you would like to contribute to Calaveras and other similar schools, please check out our donations page.

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