Books building bridges from Brentwood to Compton
Eight years ago, Rebecca Constantino made her first book drop -- delivering a few boxes of discarded volumes from Brentwood Elementary School to a third-grade classroom at Marian Anderson Elementary in Compton.
Brentwood needed to dispose of the books, to make room for new ones in its library. Anderson Elementary hadn't used its library in so long, the door was locked and no one knew where the keys had gone.
Constantino's simple gesture launched a project -- Access Books -- aimed at stocking inner-city schools with enough enjoyable books that kids will read better and read more.
On Saturday, Access Books returned to its roots, delivering 8,000 books -- 28 boxes full -- to Anderson. This time, the gift included a couch, a rocking chair, a reading rug, books for every classroom, plus enough new hardcover volumes to double the size of the school's library.
The visit was a result of a Times story last fall about a fire that destroyed the classroom collection of fifth-grade teacher Jacquie Hundley.
Hundley had spent seven years buying, begging and borrowing books, from Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias to Harry Potter. Each fall she would haul the books to school in her car, and every summer she would take them home and store them in the garage behind her Westlake apartment.
Hundley's garage caught fire last August, just as school was about to start, destroying all but five of her 400 books.
Since it began in 1999 with that impromptu crosstown delivery, Access Books has provided a million books to more than 100 Southern California campuses. It's still a shoestring operation. Constantino and part-time librarian Erica Vega rely on grants from charities and corporations to buy new hardcovers. They store the books in rented portable trailers, and deliver them in Constantino's ancient truck.
The project links suburban and inner-city campuses.
Middle-class schools host book drives to collect "gently used" volumes. Volunteers from both schools meet to deliver, catalog and organize the books, and paint murals at the receiving school. Alta Vista Elementary School in Redondo Beach collected 3,000 books for Anderson.
"We don't want it to be 'These rich people are going to save these poor people,' " said Constantino, a college professor and the youngest of six children of a single mother. "What we find is the kids paint together, then they go out in the schoolyard and play. When is a kid from Compton going to get together with a kid from Brentwood? Here, they find out they're not so different. They watch the same TV shows, they're interested in the same music," she said.
