GUSD would like to highlight the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime for their long-standing partnership with our district, specifically, their yearly book donations to our district’s libraries.
At the beginning of every school year, our local Rotary Club donates money to GUSD to help fund our ever-growing and changing libraries. Since 2021, the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime has doubled its library donation amount from $1,000 to $2,000 yearly. It’s estimated that they have donated 900 books worth about $12,000 to help fund our libraries since 2006, when the donations began.
From 2009-2021, Rotary donated over $15,000 worth of dictionaries to GUSD.
Our Library Media Specialists curate their book list with the yearly Rotary donation money. The library books that are chosen are labeled and signed by several Rotary Club members at their monthly meetings before being redistributed to our libraries. Executive Assistant to the Superintendent Christy Rockwood, organizes the process of ordering books and making sure they are labeled, signed, and returned to our school sites. Julie Fischer, LMS at La Patera, said, “When I choose my list, I pick books that I know my school will love. Sometimes I pick replacements for books that need to be replaced but often take a trip to Chaucer’s to see what is new or books on topics or genres that we are lacking… this extra money each year really helps.”
Supporting local businesses is important to our district and Rotary, which is why we use the provided donation money at Chaucer’s Books. One of the managers at Chaucer’s, Jareme Magara, said he believes “staying local is key to our success and for the success of our schools and libraries! As a father of an elementary school student, I think it’s very important that books of all varieties are readily available.”
Chaucer’s provides an educator discount of 20% for books purchased for the classroom. They also organize book fair nights for local schools where they give back 25% of all sales sold within the event back to the partnering school.
We want to thank Rotary Club member of 36 years, Mike Gartzke, for providing information on this topic.
If you want to learn more about the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime, please visit their website at goletanoontimerotary.org for more information.
