Troop 223 Scouts Donate Books to Inmates, Build Bench for Vision To Learn

By DAYNA DRUM | Reporter

Pacific Palisades Boy Scouts Troop 223 has been busy recently with various acts of community service, earning badges along the way.

The troop just donated over 1,000 books to the Men’s Central Jail in Downtown Los Angeles. The troop worked together with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s office on the poject.

The book program was started by a group of Eagle Scouts moms who began collecting books when they discovered the prison’s library was in short supply of books.

The Central Jail is in the process of building a new library, which should be completed by the end of January.

In the future, the troop hopes to further increase the book supply and help additional prisons.

“Everyone should be able to read no matter where they sleep,” said Scout George Dennis.

In a separate effort, Troop 223 Scout Sam Beutner organized fellow scouts to build a bench for Vision To Learn as his Eagle Scout project.

The nonprofit organization partners with the Los Angeles Clippers to provide free eye exams and eyeglasses to students in the Inglewood School District.

The project bench will be placed outside of the mobile vision van for students to sit on while they wait for their exam.

The tip-off event on Tuesday, Jan. 19 at Inglewood High School featured LA Clippers players Paul Pierce (an Inglewood High graduate) and Chris Paul, as well as radio personality Big Boy.

Sixty students received glasses at the event, and all Inglewood students who need glasses will receive them by the end of the school year.

“Our groundbreaking partnership with the LA Clippers Foundation allows us to provide free eye care and glasses to every child in Inglewood, a community of 111,000 people,” said Vision To Learn chair and founder Austin Beutner, a Palisadian who is Sam’s father and the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

“To our knowledge this is the first effort of its kind anywhere in the nation in a community this size,” Beutner added.

“As Paul Pierce, an Inglewood High graduate noted, ‘it’s about making a difference.’ The Scouts from Troop 223 put in many hours of hard work on this project, which will make a real difference in the lives of many, many kids in Inglewood,” Beutner told the Palisadian-Post. “An Eagle Scout’s project is meant to provide the ‘maximum benefit for the community’ it is intended to serve. This project is a great example of that.”

Of his son Sam’s contribution, Beutner said, “I’m very proud of him.”

“We are beyond grateful for the generosity of Vision To Learn and the LA Clippers Foundation,” said Inglewood Mayor Jim Butts.  “This is an exciting day for our students who will now have the opportunity to see clearly and perform better in class at no cost—in time or money—to their families.”

Vision To Learn is a nonprofit organization that provides free eye exams and free glasses to children in low-income communities.  Vision To Learn’s mobile clinics, staffed with licensed optometrists, visit schools and youth service programs and have examined nearly 50,000 kids and provided over 37,000 pairs of glasses free of charge to children in California, Delaware and Hawaii since 2012.