The Bear Den of Unit 305 “did their best” when they coordinated a book drive recently that exceeded expectations. The brainchild of Bear Den Leader Diane Rodrigues, she along with her Scouts spearheaded the collection of 500 new and gently used books for this year’s community service project. It was designed as part of the Fellowship and Duty to God Adventure requirement to put into practice what the Bears learned about their faith.
Scouts strive to be reverent and do this by helping others.
The Bears worked together to create collection boxes of books donated by fellow scouting families and others in the community through a request on the Unit 305 Facebook page. Leaders, scouts and parents sorted the books by age and reading level and donated them to five organizations, all with different literary missions.
Operation Paperback provides the “opportunity to escape into a good book” by sending reading material to American men and women serving in the armed forces, veterans and military families at home and overseas. The adult paperback and hardcover books provide new reading material for the soldiers for mental escape and relaxation. The soldiers were also gifted children’s books to read to their sons and daughters virtually during deployment.
The pre-k and kindergarten books enable Precious Angels Daycare in Kearny to expand their library collection for their growing program.
Books for children and adults were given to Intermountain Therapy Animals to support their Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.) program to boost confidence in literacy skills during non-judgmental team sessions. The child or adult reads aloud to a registered therapy dog under the supervision of a literacy mentor.
Books in a variety of subjects were placed in the book nooks sponsored by the Kearny Elks 1050 near every school throughout Kearny.
The Oasis in Paterson, a safe house for battered women and children, also received a number of donations.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.