MISSION VIEJO : $50,000 Donation to Help Pay for Bus

Robbie Lee would seem an unlikely benefactor.

Lee is 27, single, has no children, never attended a school in the Saddleback Valley and really, for the most part, would rather be surfing.

So why is this man giving $50,000 for a school bus for the Saddleback Valley Unified School District?

“First of all, this area has been very good to me and to my business,” Lee said. “Secondly, I love kids. Lazy adults, stupid adults I have no patience with. But kids I’ll do anything for, any time.”

Lee, the owner of the 13-store Video City chain, is donating all the receipts from his Mission Viejo store for the month of June to the Saddleback Valley Educational Foundation, a community support group for the school district. That’s the gross receipts, everything that walks in the door.

“It will be more than $50,000,” Lee said.

Valmere Kranek, foundation president, said the group has “been in existence since 1983 and gone through different growing pains and various levels of involvement. But Robbie has given us a rebirth.”

Lee’s video career started three years ago in Upland when he put his savings, $40,000, into a friend’s video store. The partner could not make the store go, so Lee repossessed it.

“I had to; it was all the money I had,” he said.

Three years later he has a chain of stores stretching from Mission Viejo to Bakersfield.

With Lee’s money, the district hopes to pay for a large chunk of the $100,000 needed for a new bus. It will be used principally for field trips.

“I was shocked to learn that a district in this affluent area was having trouble transporting kids on field trips,” Lee said. “This is a beautiful area to grow up in, but it’s insulated. I think kids need to be exposed to all the other things that are out there, and field trips can do that.”