Palo Alto residents Bill and Kara Rosenberg turned a windfall into an opportunity for charity this week.

The couple won a $500 gift certificate to Kepler's bookstore last weekend, part of the grand re-opening festivities. The Menlo Park store had been closed for a month while investors from the community worked to revive it.

The Rosenbergs chose a few books for themselves and donated the rest to schools damaged by Hurricane Katrina in St. Tammany Parish, La., as part of the "Bridge of Caring" project sponsored by Palo Alto school groups.

The couple asked the children who had sold them the winning raffle tickets -- Adriana and Elena Mendez, Talia Jade Sourkes and Peter Rosston -- to select the books.

Some of the reading material the kids chose included: "Because of Winn Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo; "Ramona's World" by Beverly Cleary; "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean George; and "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg.

Kara Rosenberg is the principal of the Palo Alto Adult School. Bill is a mathematician at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale. He said he's been shopping at the 50-year-old Kepler's since the 1960s.