Dave and Sherry Savage are the driving force behind Uncle Dave’s Book Club at the East County Transitional Living Center, a 540-bed facility for homeless families. Partnering with the La Jolla Sunrise Rotary Club, of which they are longtime members, they created a library and filled it with children’s books.
This library is unique. A child who enjoys a book gets to keep it, and the book will be replenished so there is always a full library.
Dave and Sherry want to share their special relationship with books. Both were raised in families that emphasized reading at early ages, and both fell in love with books. Books affected their lives and even helped change their career paths.
Dave is from a muti-generational family of book lovers, including a great aunt who operated a mobile library in the 1930s. He grew up reading the classics.
Sherry spent every weekend with her grandmother, who had a passion for books and made sure Sherry’s room was full of them.
When her family moved and she was allowed to bring only one suitcase, Sherry filled it with books rather than toys, she said, “because they had become my friends.”
At 19, Dave read a book about real estate investing, was inspired and decided to forego college to pursue a career investing in apartments.
“My whole career started with reading that book,” he said. “I learned I could be my own boss with no ceiling on my income, that I could borrow money to buy buildings and have somebody else pay it back. I loved the idea.”
Sherry learned about entrepreneurship through books, decided to forego college and opened a small business.
Both have had highly successful careers.
During their first date in 2016, they bonded over books and their similar life experiences. They were married that year.
The idea for Uncle Dave’s Book Club grew from his family’s reading culture. “I had a full library of old books and decided to offer inducements to my seven nieces and nephews to read and give me book reports,” Dave said. “We called it Uncle Dave’s Book Club.
“Among the many books was the 1,000-page Complete Works of Shakespeare. Surprisingly, my little niece read it and gave a nice report.”
Dave and Sherry’s first book project outside of family was in Mozambique, Africa, also called Uncle Dave’s Book Club.
“Through an international program, we learned of the Mozambique government’s efforts to improve literacy as a key to improving their citizens’ quality of life,” Sherry said. “We funded the first book in their traditional tribal language, a folklore book with beautiful illustrations that was handed out to children.
“It was a story they would have heard their grandparents tell around the campfire, but they never saw in print.”
“We traveled there and saw children holding books for the first time,” Dave added. “It was a real life-changing time for us as a couple. That became the impetus for creating Uncle Dave’s Book Club at the East County Transitional Living Center.”
According to Julie Hayden, the Center’s CEO, Uncle Dave’s Book Club is a key to helping hundreds of families adjust from trauma-filled lives.
“Most of these children have been homeless in one way or another,” she explained. “Some from riverbeds, some from the streets or trolley stations and some living in cars.
“The library gives them a safe spot and fun environment with books, as opposed to the stressful environment they experienced.
“We have parents reading with their children, which didn’t happen before since they didn’t have easy access to books. It is something special for them.”
Dave and Sherry, 69 and 64, respectively, plan to expand the library into a learning center with volunteer readers and teachers.
“Helping these families is really fulfilling,” Dave said. “We want to take it further.”
Sherry acknowledged she tears up when seeing children in the library and their enthusiasm.
“Small gestures,” she said, “make big impacts on children and their lifetime as adults.
“And that starts with a book, something as simple as that.”
About this series
Goldsmith is a Union-Tribune contributing columnist.
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