Highlanders in the News: Week of April 11

Turning trash into cash yields kid-lit stash

How does one transform bags and bags of garbage into thousands of books for kids?

Ask Trisha Goolsby ’12, M.S. ’13, who will tell you it can be done, albeit with no small amount of effort.

On April 4, Goolsby and her Cans4Books Community Initiative were profiled in the news magazine Pb Monthly, covering the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, California.

The article recounts how in 2020, Goolsby became inspired by California’s 5 to 10 cent refunds for glass, plastic and aluminum. She organized recycling collection efforts, turned in her bottles and cans for money, then used that cash to buy children’s books from thrift stores.

Twelve cans translate to the cost of one used paperback. Twenty cans equal a secondhand hardback. And over time, it all adds up.

“At the end of last year, we received and donated more than 3,000 books,” Goolsby told Pb Monthly writer Regina Elling.

“Up to this point this year, we have already donated more than 4,000 books,” she added, a mere third of the way through 2022.

The project has expanded to include multiple drop-off sites and cleanup efforts, and it now serves a half-dozen neighborhoods.

Goolsby has a Master of Education degree with a concentration in early childhood and early childhood special education and spent years as a nanny and preschool teacher. Now, she gets to help educate countless young people she’ll likely never even meet.

“Trisha is so enthusiastic and passionate about her cause; she really wants to help the community and the kids,” a neighbor told Pb Monthly. “It works out beautifully because we can donate our recycling, and we don’t have to go anywhere to do it.

“It also helps out the kids in the community with books, so it’s a win-win.”

For more information about the Cans4Books Community Initiative, visit its Facebook page or its Linqapp site.

Grand “Masters”

When he was growing up in Pearisburg, Virginia, and attending Giles High School, Marty Smith ’98 wasn’t a golfer, but his father Leo certainly was.

In an April 5 profile of the ESPN broadcaster, Smith recounted to The Roanoke Times that “My dad loved the Masters and he loved golf … he watched it all the time.

“I didn’t understand golf when I was a kid … but he would make me sit there, and he would say, ‘You need to watch this,’” Smith told sportswriter Mark Berman.

His father’s imperative later proved almost cosmically correct: About a decade after Marty Smith joined ESPN in 2006, he was assigned to cover the Masters Tournament for “SportsCenter,” and he’s been on the beat ever since.

This year his role was expanded further as he was introduced into the sports network’s coverage of the tournament’s Par-3 Contest.

These accomplishments come with a bittersweet caveat – Leo Smith died in 2008 and thus never got the chance to see his son cover the event he so revered.

“He would be really proud of this. He would be tickled as hell that his boy got to be a part of this,” Smith told the newspaper and described his annual ritual of reflection, which involves enjoying two drinks – a beer for himself and one for his father – while relaxing near the Masters’ 11th hole, Amen Corner.

“I spend time just spiritually with my dad, remembering how much he loved it and how desperately I wish he could see this,” the broadcaster said.

Nevertheless, Smith considers his work “a blessing.”

“To get to cover it for ESPN … it just blows my mind to have that opportunity, to be somebody that they feel like could maybe be able to convey the passion and the wonder of that event,” he told the newspaper.

The 2022 Masters Tournament concluded on April 10, with 25-year-old Scottie Scheffler of Dallas, Texas, emerging as the winner to claim his first major championship.