3307 NORTHBROOK ROAD
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
WEB SITE- TRUDYJOE.ORG
EMAIL- TRUDYJOEBOOKSWAP@AOL.COM
PHONE 410-484-4080
WE ARE A FEDERAL TAX EXEMPT 501(C)3 CHARITY- FEDERAL TAX NUMBER 65-1312738
Press Room
TAKEN FROM THE BALTIMORE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING OF 3/10/2009
BOARD CHAIR MORRIS: "All right. Thank you. I'm going to turn to our Vice Chair to recognize gifts and donations."
COMMISSIONER FRANCOIS:... "We also want to thank Trudy and Joe Kauffman. They collected over 6,250 books and delivered them to 8 schools. They are committed to collecting new books for city schools' classroom libraries and continue to take books from the community for our schools. If you have books to donate, please see Trudy and Joe Kauffman. Thank you very much."
PRESS ROOM
View the Baltimore Sun video here:View the video
We have Been selected by the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland as an "Approved Activity". Girl Scout Leaders- please contact Girl Scout Headquarters for further information.
Girl Scouts
Girl Scout troop 715 of Ellicott City helped gather 1,500 books in less than two weeks for a Baltimore City school that had outdated reference and literature books. One of the dictionaries was so old that it defined computer as "one who computes; a reckoner; a calculator." The troop worked with the Trudy and Joe Kaufman School Library Swap Foundation, set up a year ago by a Baltimore couple to help struggling public-school libraries. View the video and read the article created by the Baltimore Sun that shows the importance of such a large donation of books.
A Successful Book Drive- Over 1,500 Books Collected (12/2007)
This is the notice used by Troop 715 in their successful book drive
ARE YOUR CHILDREN'S BOOKSHELVES OVERFLOWING?
Every child deserves the chance to escape into a book. Girl Scout Troop #715 is collecting gently used children's books for Baltimore City Elementary Schools. The libraries in Baltimore City Elementary Schools are very limited. Many of the schools have no books available for the children to take home. Please take a look at your children's bookshelves and see if there are any books that you no longer need. Troop #715 will have a box located in the lobby of the school from December 5th-December 19th. Please contact Margie Diven if you have any questions at xxxxxxxxxxx.
PLEASE ONLY DONATE CHILDREN'S BOOKS.
THOMAS JOHNSON ELEMENTARY GETS DONATION OF 1,500 BOOKS IN PUSH TO UPDATE OBSOLETE LIBRARY KEEPING UP WITH TOMES
The Sun - Baltimore, Md. Author: Nick Madigan
Date: Dec 21, 2007
The weathered, well-thumbed dictionary, its pages stained from decades of perusal, was so old that its definition for "computer" was "one who computes; a reckoner; a calculator." In 1956, when the Webster's edition was published, that made perfect sense.
But in the forlorn library at Thomas Johnson Elementary School in South Baltimore, the age of that obsolete book and hundreds like it are a pressing issue for teachers trying to instill in their young charges a sense of the world as it is now.
So the school's administrators happily accepted yesterday a donation of about 1,500 books, some as up-to-date as you can get, as well as about 50 pounds of art supplies, from a Girl Scouts troop and the Trudy and Joe Kaufman School Library Swap Foundation, set up a year ago by a Baltimore couple to help struggling public-school libraries.
"The ability of kids to read, and not having books to read, is wrong," said Joseph Kaufman, a retired commercial real estate broker who established the foundation with his wife after they spotted a sign at a Hunt Valley store seeking book donations for the school. This year, they have given about 3,000 books to Thomas Johnson and to the Brehms Lane and Waverly elementary schools.
As the boxes full of books and supplies were being unloaded in the school's assembly room, Kiya Brown, 7, said that books are important "because you can read them so you can learn the words you don't know."
Sitting next to her, Alpha Bah, who is also 7, said he has "about 60" books at home so that, from his point of view, the donation to the school was not such an urgent matter. "My brother helps me read them," Alpha said, referring to his 12-year-old sibling, Mamadou. "And he helps me do my homework on the computer."
With that nod to the Internet era, Alpha crystallized the challenge of teachers competing for the attention of youngsters who are drawn to video games and Web surfing rather than to the verses of A.A. Milne and Robert Frost. To make matters worse, at least at Thomas Johnson Elementary, is the lack of city funding for a librarian to manage the book collection, establish a lending system and update tomes.
"We haven't had a librarian here in seven or eight years," said Maria Zozulak, who oversees instructional support for Thomas Johnson's literacy programs. In fact, the school was in danger of closing two years ago, she said, and was saved by a concerted effort from residents of its neighborhood in Federal Hill.
"There's been a big change around here -- more mixed, less poor," said Zozulak, who estimated there were 400 students at the school, founded more than a century ago. "A lot of parents around here were blue-collar, working class -- firemen, policemen -- but it's more gentrified now. The local community is supporting us, so we have got to come through and give their children what they deserve."
In an illustration of the school's love of books, Thomas Johnson students' reading test scores in March this year were substantially higher -- in the case of its fifth graders, 34 percentage points higher -- than the city average.
Waving dismissively toward the aging books lining the library shelves, Zozulak said the school's rule of thumb is that "anything more than 10 years old is obsolete." Near her, a book had tumbled to the carpeted floor: It was Children of Russia, a volume of photographs with an introduction by Harrison E. Salisbury, who had served as a New York Times correspondent in Moscow after World War II. The book was printed in 1967.
"The encyclopedias are old, the reference books are old," said Zozulak, who is in her 37th year as an educator. "You're going to have problems with stereotypes, with currency of information, that sort of thing."
Of more immediate concern, according to one of the Girl Scouts who went to the school yesterday, was the fact that the library's index cards contain no reference to the Ravens and therefore, presumably, no books about the team, which was founded in 1996. When Ravens fan Kelsey Diven, 11, looked them up, the only local football players she found were the Baltimore Colts -- who bolted from the city in March 1984.
Kelsey, who is the Kaufmans' granddaughter, and two other members of Girl Scouts Troop 714 at Northfield Elementary School in Ellicott City, Maggie Loughlin and Natalie Johnson, both 10, were part of a team that in less than two weeks collected the 1,500 books delivered yesterday. Each teacher manages the collection of books of his or her classroom, and it is those mini-libraries, which cater to individual students' reading skills, that will benefit most, said Cory Zolnier, a second-grade teacher.
"Who's got muscle, who's got brains, and who loves to read?" principal, James R. Sasiadek, asked the crowded room as he sought volunteers to distribute the books. "These are just in time for the holidays, so you can take books home to read."
Among the choices in the new batch: Some Pig! a farmyard fable by E.B. White (HarperCollins, 2007); Waiting for Filippo, a pop-up book by Michael Bender about the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi (Chronicle Books, 1995); and, appropriately, The Bear Who Wanted to Read, by Lee Davis (Family Learning, 1998).
"It's not a big deal," said Michael Singer, 8, nonchalantly, as he watched the proceedings. "I read when I first get home. I do my homework and I read. I've got a whole closet full of toys and books."
"Oh my gosh," responded Shayna Gurry, also 8, who said she has been reading since kindergarten. "My closet is full of clothes and shoes."
nick.madigan@baltsun.com
Read more about the city's schools on The Sun's education blog, www.baltimoresun.com/InsideEd.
online
Watch a video at baltimoresun.com/donations
Credit: Sun reporter
READING FUNDAMENTALS
The Sun - Baltimore, Md.
Editorial
Date: Jan 28, 2008 Start
Fewer Americans are reading, especially for pleasure, according to a report from the National Endowment for the Arts. The report links the decline in voluntary reading to lower academic test scores, a potential for poor professional performance and decreased social engagement. Those consequences signal the need for smart interventions by schools, parents and communities.
That would certainly be true in Baltimore, where standardized reading scores drop off in the middle grades and too many school libraries are either woefully inadequate or nonexistent.
The most recent NEA report synthesizes data from more than 40 studies. It covers fiction and nonfiction reading habits, including books, newspapers, magazines and online reading. The research showed that Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 typically spend seven minutes of their daily leisure time reading, compared with nearly two hours of watching television. Only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read every day, a low enough number but at least distinguishable from the 13 percent who are considered non-readers. By age 17, however, the proportions of daily readers and non-readers is much closer - at 22 percent and 19 percent, respectively.
It's not surprising, then, that reading scores among high school seniors have been slowly falling and employers increasingly complain that workers' reading comprehension skills have declined. The study also found that non-readers are less likely to engage in positive civic and social activities, such as volunteering, exercising or attending cultural events.
Reversing the trend requires starting early - as other research studies have shown - with more parents reading to their young children and keeping their homes filled with books. Schools can reinforce the habit even before kindergarten. Maryland, for example, has an approved preschool curriculum that emphasizes reading. The state's Reading First program aims to re-engage low-income middle school students in reading, although the study suggests that all students could benefit from the program. And restoring school libraries, particularly in Baltimore, should be more of a priority.Maryland communities, including Baltimore, have tried to promote more civic engagement by encouraging residents to collectively read and discuss a specific book. Such efforts deserve widespread support.
The NEA report makes clear that reading really is fundamental, for individuals and for communities.
