Bill’s Word: Supporting and Celebrating our Schools!
Dear Friend,
It is always surprising how quickly a school year goes as we are in mid-February and the end of the school year is in sight. At the Alameda Education Foundation (AEF) we are concluding some of our programs for the 2012-13 school year. Today Kathie Woulfe and I delivered five more Adopt A Classroom(AAC) donations to Paden, EHS, Lincoln, Wood and Haight. That brings our total AAC’s to 126. Our goal is 130 and I am sure we will make it in March, the last month to make AAC donations for the school year. It is not too late to adopt a classroom for this year.
Our Middle School Sports basketball program is ending next week with our championship games at the Alameda Boys and Girls Club on Tuesday (Boys) and Wednesday (Girl). B games begin at 3:45 with A games following at approximately 4:45.
Our featured event of the year is coming on April 19th — Salute To Education. It i s our 30th Salute to Education event. We will showcase innovative programs from all of Alameda’s K-12 public schools, honor a volunteer from each school, and thank our generous business supporters. It is an uplifting event that includes delicious food catered by Cafe Q, music by the Alameda and Encinal High jazz bands, and a spectacular setting overlooking the San Francisco skyline at Rock Wall Winery. We wish to thank our sponsors for this event – Cafe Q, Rock Wall and South Shore. We are still accepting sponsors for this event through next week and would greatly appreciate your support of our schools, teachers and volunteers! Sponsors will be included in all event publicity materials. If you are interested, please email info@alamedaeducation.org. We are offering advertising opportunities as well. Information on that may be found here. Tickets may be purchased on our website.
Internally, I am very excited to welcome our new AEF Board members – Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and former Boys and Girls Club Executive Director George Phillips. Both bring experience, expertise and a passion for supporting our youth.
Our winter/spring after school Enrichment classes are underway. We are also offering Enrichment camps over spring break April 1 – 5, which is just around the cor ner. Registration is open now for World Scientists Camp with Mad Science (for K- 3rd grades) and Skilly Circus (for 2nd – 5th grades). Both camps will be held 8:30 am – 12:30 pm at Lum School with after care available through Alameda Recreation and Parks.
It’s also not too early to plan for summer. We will again offer Enrichment Summer Camps in areas such as aviation, computer programming, Mandarin, Spanish, and that parent favorite – math! Registration begins March 1st – click the blue “Register” button.
It has been a short week and what better way to celebrate than to come by Angela’s Bistro and Bar tomorrow (Friday) from 5:30 – 7:30 pm for Friday Night Flights. This is a fundraising event put on by Angela’s that generates funds for local charities. $10 gets you 2 glasses of wine from a local vintner and 100% of this goes to support AEF programs. I hope to see you there!
Sincerely,
Bill Sonneman