Columbia Gorge News
www.columbiagorgenews.com
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
B1
Classroom Books For Change serves local schools
Kirby Neumann-Rea
■ By Columbia
Gorge News
Q
UIETLY, DURING THE
pandemic, parents on both
sides of the Columbia River
raised funds independently to
expand horizons in classrooms in
Hood River and White Salmon.
At its start, the Classroom Books
For Change project yielded more
than $6,000 for Hood River County
schools, through 71 donations,
allowing organizer Denice
Bukanovsky to work with schools
to purchase books from Black,
Latino and Indigenous perspec-
tives for every elementary class-
room and libraries in Hood River
County School District. It’s about
600 books, with more to come, all
selected by teachers.
She’s expanded the monetary
goal and has plans to create a
statewide foundation to help other
schools do the same.
“I wanted to do something
that will help truly work toward
change,” Bukanovsky told the Hood
River County School Board in a
recent meeting, where she was
honored for her project.
“What Denice did was conta-
gious, in a good way,” said District
Curriculum Director Bill Newton,
formerly Westside Elementary
principal through the 2019-20
school year, when Bukanovsky
developed the project.
Much of the fundraising hap-
pened through the Go Fund Me/
Classroom Books for Change
account, which is still live and
accepting donations.
“It really has been the highlight
of my year,” Bukanovsky said. “It is
a project the kids have helped me
with, too,” referring to her daughter
and son, who are in high school
and middle school.
But Bukanovsky’s outreach went
beyond Hood River; she contacted
parents Dale Pytel and Lee Lloyd in
White Salmon, who are duplicating
the same effort there.
“Lee worked with a teacher who
submitted a request to the educa-
tion foundation and they funded
another $3,000. Lee and Dale coor-
dinated with the schools and pur-
chased books through Waucoma
exclusively. Their efforts ignited
one of the teachers,
and she requested
money from White
Salmon Education
Foundation, which
is very active and
many community
Denice
members go di-
Bukanovsky
rectly to them and
it’s pretty seam-
less,” Bukanovsky said.
“It was a wonderful success in
White Salmon,” Pytel said. “We
were able to raise close to $1,600
from private donors and due to the
community support, we received a
generous donation from the White
Salmon Education Foundation.
So far, we have purchased hun-
dreds of books for Whitson and
the intermediate school. And have
plans to purchase more in the near
future. The books were requested
by the teachers. It’s an honor to be
a part of getting these important
and beautiful books in the hands of
our children.”
Bukanovsky said that after
George Floyd and the protests
gained momentum, “I felt like I
wanted to do something produc-
tive and change hearts and minds
of kids. They can learn in two plac-
es, in the home and school. And I
wanted to find a place to impact
them for years to come.”
Bukanovsky said the books
selected “intend to develop pride
in racial diversity and compassion
and understanding of others.”
Bukanovsky’s long-term goal is to
create a foundation and expand
the project statewide, if not
nationwide. She has an immedi-
ate $10,000 goal for Hood River
County schools. Donations are still
welcome — at gofund.me/f6c659bf
— and anything exceeding the goal
places many welcome titles in the
elementary schools and expands
the project into the middle schools,
where she was unable to fill all the
teacher requests.
“Friends in other communities
out of state reached out and we’ll
see where it goes,” Bukanovsky
said. “It can certainly be a wonder-
ful thing for our kids, for years to
come.”
Anyone wishing to contact her
about making a direct donation
Sample books purchased by Hood River and White Salmon volunteers for local schools’ classrooms and libraries.
Denice Bukanovsky photo
can do so at classroombooks-
forchange@gmail.com.
Many books for the upper valley
are Spanish translations or Spanish
originals, and many books received
Caldecott, Newbery Medal, Coretta
Scott King and Pura Belpre awards.
She focused the collection on
Black, Latino and Indigenous top-
ics and authors, as well as multi-ra-
cial authors and illustrators.
Roughly half the books are in
Spanish or relate to the Hispanic
experience.
“I think a lot of the Hispanic sto-
ries are going to resonate,” she said.
“There a lot of beautiful stories that,
for the Hispanic community, I want
to feel empowered, and for the
white community, I want to feel a
sense of understanding.
“I wanted to make it very clear
to our community these were not
books I was choosing. The premise
and scope I chose, but the teachers
chose the books.”
She started at Westside
Elementary, where her kids had
attended.
“It started with me emailing one
teacher, and I thought, ‘I can buy
books for all the teachers’, starting
with Westside only, and with the
goal that if that was quickly funded,
I would expand it,” Bukanovsky
said. “And within two days I had
$700, just through emailing and
texting, and I knew.”
She expanded the goal to $6,000,
and emailed all principals to ask
teachers if they wanted Black,
Latino and Indigenous stories “that
develop compassion and head us
down the road to social justice, and
immediately, I got an expansive list
from Westside teachers and shared
with principals a sample list and a
reading list from a middle school
teacher, and there was such quick
response and they were very en-
thusiastic, so I knew I had to make
my goal of getting the money then,
so I worked all summer (2020), one
contact at a time.”
Help came via proceeds from or-
ganized events involving donated
auction items, as well as individual
donations — many word-of-mouth
— and a Hood River Rotary gift.
Bukanovsky spent $3,000 at
Waucoma Bookstore in Hood River
and researched Black-owned book-
stores in the Bay Area and Tulsa.
On May 21, the Oklahoma town
observes the 100th anniversary of
the 1921 massacre of more than
100 Black citizens and destruction
by white mobs of the Greenwood
district.
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S
ave for a rainy day is a
phrase that reminds
people to save money when
times are good so they have
money to use when there is
a big expense, or the ability
to earn money stops.
Most people save for a
rainy day by putting a little
money aside each week,
or each month. They put
these “savings” into a bank
account or a piggy bank or
even a jar.
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Hood River, OR
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Kevin puts 50¢ into his Rainy-Day Fund each week. Amy puts 75¢ into her Rainy-Day
Fund each week. Circle the coins that add up to 50¢ in orange. Circle the coins that add
up to 75¢ in blue. Each coin can only be used once.
“Save for a rainy day” is an
idiom. An idiom is a phrase
that doesn’t literally mean what
it says. Work with a parent to
write the number of each
idiom’s definition in the circles.
Idioms
Why have a rainy-day fund?
Back to the drawing board
Tomas’ parents gave him $2 every week for
allowance. But when the pandemic
caused his father’s company to
close for a few months, his dad
could no longer give Tomas
an allowance.
Missed the boat
Tomas had been putting 50¢ of
his weekly allowance into a Rainy-Day
Fund jar for a year. That totaled
$26. So even though he wasn’t
getting an allowance, Tomas
still had some money if
he needed it.
When his dad’s company opened back up,
Tomas started getting his allowance again.
But this time, he started adding 75¢ to his
rainy day jar every week.
Fit as a fiddle
Costs an arm and a leg
Can you draw lines to connect
each umbrella’s twin?
By saving 75¢ each
week, how much will
be in Tomas’ jar after
one year?
How much is in Alma’s bank?
Alma’s grandmother sends her $25
every year on her birthday. Alma is
11 years old, and her
grandmother started
sending the money to
her on her 5th birthday.
Alma saved half of the
money each year in her
Rainy-Day Fund piggy bank. How
much is in Alma’s piggy bank
now? Write the amount on
the bank’s label.
START
How much should go
into a “rainy-day” fund?
You don’t have to put a lot of money
into your rainy-day fund all at once.
What matters most is putting a little
bit of money into your fund on a
FINISH
regular basis. For example,
if you get an allowance
once a week, put part of
your weekly allowance into
your rainy-day fund every
time you get your allowance.
Martina’s neighbor moved away last month.
Martina’s bike got a flat tire and she doesn’t
have the money to get it replaced. She now
wishes she had saved money in a Rainy-Day
Fund jar like her cousin Tomas.
Can you think of a time when you
could have used a Rainy-Day
Fund jar of your own?
Wild goose chase
Once in a blue moon
R R G S R E B M U N
A E C N A W O L L A
C G O A I N E I N E
By the skin of your teeth
Piece of cake
C U I Y E V S R Y R
O L N Y I
I A D G O
U A S G S I A S G H
N R P A N D E M I C
T Y B Y M T R A P O
Definitions
1. In good health
2. Just barely achieving
E S N E P X E N E Y
Standards Link: Letter sequencing. Recognize identical
words. Skim and scan reading. Recall spelling patterns.
3. Starting over
4. Something very expensive
5. A task that’s easy to do
Describe
Dollars
Look through the newspaper for words that
Martina’s Money Mistakes
Martina earned $5.00 each week watering and weeding her neighbor’s
garden. Unfortunately, Martina spent almost all of that money every
week building up her sticker collection.
ALLOWANCE
PANDEMIC
REGULAR
NUMBERS
EXPENSE
ACCOUNT
SAVING
RAINY
MONEY
CHORE
COINS
PIGGY
BASIS
GIVE
PART
My Rainy-Day
Fund Pledge
I will put ____________ into
my rainy-day fund each week.
This money will come from:
Expanded
Numbers
Look through the
newspaper for five
4-digit numbers.
Rewrite each one
in an expanded
form using words
instead of digits.
For example:
Allowance
A weekly chore
A weekly job
Other ___________
Standards Link: Math:
Write out number amounts.
can be used to describe money. How many can
you find? Now have a parent try. Try to use as
many as you can in one long sentence.
6. Lost an opportunity
7. A rare occurance
8. A pointless activity
Standards Link: Vocabulary Development: Identify adjectives.
How do you earn money? Do you do
chores? What kind of jobs do you do?
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joy of reading, their world widens further.
Magic happens.
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