A Little Money, a Lot of Good

It doesn’t take a whole lot of money to do a whole lot of good.

Carolyn Lundgren’s latest gift is inspiring not so much for its size as for the simple fact that she noticed she could help--and did.

The $1,000 Ventura resident Lundgren recently donated to the Avenue Library was just one more good deed among many for a woman who, with her late husband Harry, has supported many local causes. The proceeds of their happily frugal life together--eating early-bird specials, clipping coupons and bargain shopping at garage sales--and careful investing in the stock market have made life better for thousands of Ventura County residents.

A few years ago, they gave $30,000 to the Ventura College Foundation to buy a grand piano and computers and fund seven music school scholarships. After Harry died in January 1999, his wife donated his beloved collection of antique gas pumps and “fill ‘er up” memorabilia to the Union Oil Museum in Santa Paula.

As librarian Alberta Word tells the tale, Carolyn Lundgren “came into the library one day, looked around and said, ‘I would like to buy some books.’ ” Word showed her the library’s wish list. A few days later, Lundgren had bought everything on the list.

It was a sampling of 75 books related to the state’s required curriculum. That means area children, who make up two-thirds of the clientele in this branch on Ventura’s low-income Westside, will now be able to find a book on whatever homework subject they’re tackling.

“If they come in with that frantic look on their face saying, ‘I have to have a book on volcanoes,’ now there’ll be a book where there wouldn’t have been before,” Word told The Times.

Lundgren’s $1,000 equaled almost half the library’s $2,300 annual book budget. Budgets have been especially tight since 1993, when state funding to the county’s library system was slashed 40%. Most branches have had to turn to private donors and support groups to raise money and to keep reminding politicians that libraries are as important to Ventura County’s quality of life as other programs that more dramatically demand top priority.

In a perfect world, providing up-to-date library books for Ventura County’s kids wouldn’t depend on the generosity of people like Carolyn Lundgren. But in the world we live in, it’s nice that such people exist.

We honor her for caring enough to notice a way that she could help--and then simply doing it.