Students Read 226,995 Pages to Help Miller Children’s Hospital Patients in 21st Anniversary of Jester & Pharley Phund’s Read-A-Thon Twenty-one years ago in 2001, the Jester & Pharley Phund introduced the first Read-A-Thon program for low-income schools at Lincoln Elementary in Long Beach. On January 17, Lincoln Elementary’s top readers were awarded during a festive ceremony. Rita Goshert, Director of Miller’s Child Life program, happily handed out prizes to the surprised top two readers in 30 classrooms, along with Phund President Barbara Saltzman and Executive Director Amy Hastings. Altogether, Lincoln Lions read 226,995 pages, besting 2001 readers by over 100,000 pages. And many students also made Sunshine Cards they gave to Goshert to bring more smiles to her young patients. All participating students received a book from the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation. The Jester Read-A-Thon sponsored by Farmers & Merchants Bank and the Long Beach Rotary Charitable Foundation generated the donation of David Saltzman’s “The Jester Has Lost His Jingle” children’s book and accompanying Jester & Pharley Doll to Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach. The book was Chadwick graduate Saltzman’s senior project at Yale before he died of cancer at 22 in 1990. For more information about this program or The Jester & Pharley Phund: https://thejester.org/
Mahjong Mavens
The self-proclaimed Mahjong Mavens have been meeting once a week to play Mahjong for over six years. The friendly group met in a beginner’s Mahjong class hosted by the Palos Verdes School district. Karen Smith tells us, “Occasionally, we’ve taken field trips to Chinatown to ‘procure supplies’ and fortifications (knick-knacks and lunch). We are mostly moms & grandmoms with grown up kids who have navigated various PV schools and now have kiddos of their own in said schools. ‘The circle of life.”
Carol Perestam, Karen Smith, Ruth Nakagawa, Claire Ealy and Joann Brown meet weekly at the Yellow Vase
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