Book drive aims to increase youth literacy

Ask little Alicia Abasta what she wants to be when she grows up and without hesitation you’ll hear, “A book writer,” she said.

She reads every day in school in Ms. Heiser’s 4th grade class at Sea View Elementary School in Salton City. Her reading spawned that love of writing. “I can make it into whatever I want. I can write about history, I can write about whatever,” Abasta said. Ms. Stephanie Heiser says, sadly, only 9 out of the 29 kids in her class read at grade level. Abasta is one of them. “The literacy rates from third through 8th grade determine a lot about a child’s future,” Ms. Heiser said. Reading skills impact abilities to learn other subjects at this critical time. According to a recent “Kids Count” report, children who reach fourth grade without being able to read well are more likely to drop out of high school, reducing their earnings potential. Read more about the Kids Count report. So Ms. Heiser and Club Z tutor Ms. Jane Dodd set out to keep their students out of those stats by starting a book drive for the school. “A lot of our kids don’t have access to books at home for a variety of reasons and we are an hour away from town. It’s a rural impoverished area,” Heiser said. A sociologist found Hispanic kids are even more at risk. A Coachella Valley Community Health Survey from the non-profit Health Assessment and Research for Communities shows more kids under age five are not read to at home in the valley than in the state. These two teachers say literacy definitely plays a big role in someone’s life. “We all use computers now in any job. You have to have some level ability to read to be a functional reader. It’s hard to do well as an adult without a proficient level of reading,” Ms. Dodd said. Alicia knows its importance, too. “If we get a job we’re going to need to learn how to read. We’ll need to read stuff in life,” she said. All kinds of books are needed – kindergarten through sixth grade level. “If you gets books to take home will you try and read them during the summer?” Bianca Rae asked. “Yeah,” Abasta said. “Would it be fun to be able to read at home?” Rae asked. “Yeah,” Abasta said. After this book drive, it looks like there’s a lot of books – as well as book writing – in Abasta’s bright future. Here are the six book drive locations: La Quinta Car Wash, La Quinta Executive Car Wash, Palm Desert Ramon Canyon Car Wash, Cathedral City Palm Springs Auto Wash, Palm Springs Desert Hand Car Wash, Palm Springs Desert Home and Candle Gallery, Indian Wells You can also donate money for books at www.gofundme.com/SeaViewBooks The goal is to collect as many books by June 9th so the kids can take books home with them for the summer.