Going by the book

Napa native improves schools in far-away Chile

By KERANA TODOROV
Register Staff Writer

When Paul Goldberg says goodbye to Chile later this month, he will leave behind a new public school library, a multimedia room wired for the future and the prospects in place to help thousands more Chilean schoolchildren.

Goldberg, 27, is a Napa High School graduate and recipient of a Rotary ambassadorial scholarship. He will return to California and his job as a Pismo Beach firefighter this month, but he wants to continue raising the bar for Chilean schools with Scholars for Schools, the charity he and three other young Rotarians set up during their stay in Valparaiso, a city on the central coast of Chile.

The goodwill project started small, but blossomed big time over the months Goldberg has been in Chile. He and his friends have recruited dozens of Rotarians and other volunteers, in Chile and the United States, to raise money for the group’s first task — renovating and wiring a classroom at David Ben Gurion School in Valparaiso.

The new library and computer room opened recently, with 1,500 books and 15 computers with Internet access. David Ben Gurion’s K-8 students bargained with local publishing companies to get the best deals, did much of the wiring themselves, shot a video for potential donors and refurbished computers on their own in order to complete the job on an $8,000 budget.

“I’ve learned it doesn’t take too much to work to make change,” said Goldberg. “It’s been an absolutely amazing year.”

Curtis Reinhardt, a Rotarian from Arroyo Grande, near Pismo Beach on California’s Central Coast, advised Goldberg along the way. He also traveled to Chile, where he met with students, teachers and administrators at the school.

But it was Goldberg and his friends who did most of the work, he said.

Goldberg and his fellow ambassadors made the correct choice by selecting the school project, said Reinhardt, who noted that supporters in Fresno sent $1,000 to buy books for the school. Matching grants will contribute to pay for books and computers at two other schools, he said. “I think it was a good deed all the way around,” Reinhardt said.

Built to last

Goldberg said he applied for Rotary’s ambassadorial program in order to study abroad, perfect the Spanish he had studied at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and give back to the community.

Before his ambassadorship began early last year, he went to Chile to teach English and linguistics at Universidad Tecnologica de Chile in La Serena, north of Santiago.

That’s when he realized that books are a luxury for many Chileans.

“More importantly, the cost of books and other educational resources creates a huge discrepancy between public and private education in Chile,” he wrote in an e-mail from Valparaiso.

So when he made his second trip to Chile, this time as a Rotary ambassador, he and three others decided to pool their talents and connections to raise money for schools.

They visited public schools in the region and met with teachers and administrators, who told them about the lack of resources in public schools.

Realizing that making an impact would take more time than they had planned to stay, the four decided to create Scholars for Schools to transform empty classrooms into libraries and computer rooms in elementary and middle schools throughout central Chile. The setup would allow future Rotary ambassadors to continue the work.

They launched a Web site, www.scholarsforschools.org, and the group shot a video to be used as a fundraising tool in the U.S.

Three new Rotarian scholars plan to continue the project in 2009.

Goldberg, whose parents Ron and Jessie live in Napa, said he will make presentations to Rotary clubs and others to drum up funding for the schools in Chile.

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