Bruin Up Books goes from Hill to campus
By Melody Hanatani
Feb. 11, 2004 9:00 p.m.
A resolution geared at increasing student involvement in a
community service program unanimously passed at Tuesday
night’s meeting of the undergraduate student government.
The Resolution in Support of Bruin Up Books, co-sponsored by
three members of the Undergraduate Students Association Council, is
intended to move the location of the community service program from
the dorms to the general campus where more students will have
access to it.
Now in its third year, Bruin Up Books was created by the Office
of Residential Life and provides reading books donated by UCLA
students to K-12 students in low-income areas. The program is
expected to resume during eighth week.
Program coordinators said there was a need for greater student
involvement in the program and suggested moving the program, said
Community Service Commissioner Justin Schreiber. Schreiber is one
of the resolution’s co-sponsors.
Financial Supports Commissioner Erica Husse said the residential
area was a good place to start the program because of the number of
students who pass through the dorms everyday on their way to class
or dinner. Husse is also one of the resolution co-sponsors.
“There’s a larger potential for it be successful on
the general campus,” Husse said. “On-campus housing is
the obvious place to start, but that doesn’t mean it should
to stay there.”
To solicit books for the program, a table holding the Scholastic
book order forms is set outside the residential halls. Interested
students pick any number of books from the form to donate to the
schools. When receiving the books, a note is attached naming the
donor of the book.
External Vice President and resolution co-sponsor Matt Kaczmarek
said the program has been successful in the past two years with the
number of books donated rising every year with the number of
interested students.
For the past two years, the program has donated more than 8,000
books to over 200 classrooms in the Los Angeles Unified School
District, which includes schools from Local Districts I, F, G and
H.
Kaczmarek said students in the low-income areas do not have the
same opportunity the donors had with having their parents
purchasing the books for them.
“It’s really about students at UCLA taking
initiative to work in the community,” Kaczmarek said.
