It’s Easy to Adopt a School

Afew months ago, I read just one article too many in your paper about Los Angeles schoolchildren who are too poor to provide their own pencils, paper, etc., and whose schools are also too broke to fill in the gaps. I decided to do something to help. I located the Adopt-a-School office of the LAUSD and asked them to hook me up with one of the poorest schools so that I could donate school supplies.

They introduced me to Larry Gonzalez, principal of Pacoima Elementary School, who was thrilled by my offer and gave me a wish list of the basics that his kids needed.

Next, I sent a letter to all my 200-plus clients, asking them to participate in this project. I am a talent agent; my clients are actors, most of them struggling themselves to make ends meet. But the schools’ needs were so modest, I figured that at the bare minimum, it would cost each person the equivalent of a movie ticket and a box of popcorn. Well, the bags and boxes of pencils, paper, crayons, books, toys, etc., came pouring in and we filled up the back of a pickup truck with everything and trekked out to Pacoima to deliver the supplies.

I expected the worst. I thought I’d find a graffiti-covered, dirty schoolyard with miserable, angry children. Quite the contrary. Although it was built in 1915, the school was charming without so much as a wad of gum on the ground. Everything was neat and clean, the kids happy, polite and well-behaved.

Gonzalez gave us the grand tour, culminating in a room filled with about 20 first-graders, all wearing red Santa Claus hats, quietly working at their Mac computers, learning how to count. The entire experience was so delightful and so very touching that everyone got misty-eyed.

Pacoima Elementary School will now be the official “charity” of my company, and we’ll also be looking for actors to read to the kids, perform theatrical shows for them and anything else we can think of besides donating basic materials to them every year.

The whole process of finding the Adopt-a-School office, hooking up with a school, collecting the items and delivering them couldn’t have been easier. If I, the sole proprietor of a very tiny business, can do it, why can’t others? Oh, I know it’s much more glamorous and fun to buy toys for homeless kids once a year, but the long-term benefits of helping children to learn are mind-boggling. And Pacoima Elementary is just one of dozens of needy schools that are struggling every day just to be able to provide the basics to their students.