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Community Service Commissioner Justin Schreiber talks to council about the Bruin Up Books program

Bruin Up Books goes from Hill to campus

USAC passes resolution to relocate third annual book donation drive

Melody Hanatani
Published: Thursday, February 12, 2004

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.