A classroom fire was reported at Old Orchard Elementary School on Sunday, September 3rd at 9:30 pm. With some major damage to the classroom, luckily no injuries were reported. However, many of the books and supplies were burned. Brady Novean, a student at Golden Valley High School, says, “I was coming back home from LA, driving in and there were a bunch of fire trucks. I asked them what was happening, and they told me there was a classroom that was on fire”.
When the fire was put out, the classroom ended up being so damaged that it was practically unusable. Books, cabinets, and supplies all needed to be replaced. Due to this unfortunate event, the Boy Scouts of Valencia wanted to set up a book drive to help this classroom resupply their books.
Brady is the Boy Scout who is organizing the book drive. He says, “I thought it was a good idea. Potentially getting a lot of people to donate books and or raise funds to replace cabinets and shelves”. Being a boy scout, he was trying to achieve the Eagle Scout Rank. He needed to set up a community service project, with this being a great opportunity.
However, Brady clarifies, “Even though I need to set up a community service project, I’m really doing this in order to do something nice for the community.” With his mom, Mrs. Novean, also being a teacher, Brady understands that they really do not make as much money as they should. The teacher had to spend a lot of her own money out of her pocket, and so he decided that he could go help out. Brady says that he himself has taken some books off his shelf and given them to the book drive.
If you want to donate books to help this cause, they have to be new/slightly used books in the 4-6th grade range, as it was a 5th grade classroom that was burned. So far, they have collected over 200 books, and it has been largely beneficial to the affected classroom. You can either drop them off in Room 409 or hand them to Brady himself. Although submissions for books have formally ended, if you email Mrs. Novean or Brady Novean they may still accept donations.
