Local organizations and businesses join together to help students. First row from left, Joyce Nickols (Self Help, Inc.), Ellen Ben-Naim (Otowi Station Bookstore) and Alison Walters (Rotary.) Second row from left, Rick Garland (Masonic Temple), Judy Goldie (Rotary) and Jane Phillips (Rotary.) Third row from left, Lewis Muir (Rotary), Mary Burns (Rotary), Linda Anderson (Rotary) Steve Ciddio (Rotary) and Linda Hull (Rotary.) Not pictured: Brian Newnam (Rotary) and a representative of REMAX of Los Alamos. Courtesy photo
SELF HELP News:
The Self Help, Inc. sponsored “Tools for School” project has been in existence for 15 years providing school supplies for at-risk children in the Los Alamos, Espanola and Pojoaque school districts.
This year, Otowi Station Bookstore and the Rotary Club of Los Alamos, partnered with Self-Help, Inc. to provide 500 books, which were distributed along with school supplies to the districts.
Elementary school counselors and teachers will give the books to children they feel will benefit most by having a “book of my very own.”
For every pre-selected age appropriate book bought and donated by the community for Otowi Station Bookstore’s “A Book of My Very Own” project, Rotarians matched the purchase with a second book.
This large undertaking would not be possible without help from others in the community. For several years, REMAX of Los Alamos has donated the use of its truck to pick up school supplies from a vendor.
During the last three years, the supplies have been unloaded, sorted and boxed at the Los Alamos Masonic Temple by families from the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, volunteers from Kiwanis Club of Los Alamos and others in the community, prior to delivery to the individual schools.
United Way of Northern New Mexico, along with other grants and donations from the community fund the annual endeavor.
Self Help’s mission for the “Tools for School” project is to provide new school supplies to at-risk students to ensure that each child begins the school year with a complete set of the required school supplies.
The project’s vision is to help students identify positively with academic endeavors by minimizing the educational interruption and stress associated with lacking school supplies.
Unitarian Church of Los Alamos youth sort school supplies while in the background Rotarians package the “Books of My Very Own.” Courtesy photo
Kimberly Petersen and children, Lillian and Theodore, load their van at the Masonic Temple with school supplies they will deliver to ETS (Fairview) Elementary School in Espanola. Courtesy photo
Stephanie Garcia Richard, local candidate for State Representative, talks with Debbie Garcia, secretary at Mountain Elementary, as she delivers the last car load of school supplies. Richard and her daughters have helped with the “Tools for School” project for the last three years when their local church became involved. Courtesy photo