FOR RELEASE: November 12, 1999

Christmas Comes Early for Local Kids with Cancer

A $10,000 Literacy Opportunity Grant from the Starbucks Foundation that was presented to the Center for Community-Service Learning at California State University, Northridge last month, earmarked over $1,000 for books at locations where CSUN students are tutoring and reading to children in hospitals and elementary schools.

The Kaiser kids will be shopping for $500 worth of books from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 20 at Every Picture Tells A Story, 7525 Beverly Blvd., West Los Angeles. The bookstore is providing a 15% discount to the young shoppers, which will allow them to purchase even more books.

Judy Steingresser, a child life specialist with Kaiser, said she is looking forward to the shopping spree.

"The books will enrich the lives of these kids who are spending long, boring hours in the clinic while receiving their chemotherapy and platelet treatments," Steingresser said. "Sometimes they are there all day and a library, plus CSUN students to read to them, will keep them busy and learning."

Under the Starbucks grant, CSUN English students in professor Pamela Bourgeois' Children's Literature class are also providing literacy tutoring to students in Sylvan Park School in Van Nuys. Art students in Basic Design classes taught by professors Debbie Joseph and Samantha Fields are writing and illustrating picture books at Cantara Elementary and Garden Grove elementary schools in Reseda. Each of these schools will also receive an allocation for their libraries.

All four of these projects are being coordinated by CSUN's Center for Community-Service Learning, a program through which students apply academic knowledge and critical thinking skills to address genuine community needs.

"The university is thrilled to participate in a program that allows our students to form a partnership with local businesses, hospitals and schools to plan programs that benefit the children of our community and our students at the same time," said Maureen Rubin, Center director. "We often talk about win-win situations. This really is one."