Letter to the editor, Sept 14: Thank you, Sonoma Valley!

https://www.sonomanews.com/article/opinion/letters-to-the-editor-sept-14-2/

EDITOR: I want to extend a sincere thank you to the community for showing up in a massive way for the public schools at the Red & White Ball on August 27. More than 1,200 guests joined us for our community picnic, displaying how truly UNIFIED we are in supporting the students and schools of Sonoma Valley.
By hosting this event in a completely new, more inclusive format, we endeavored to celebrate and unify support of the public schools, as well as give every person in Sonoma Valley who has a stake in their success – which we believe is everyone – a chance to participate and feel pride in our collective accomplishments.

We are thrilled with the fantastic turnout and the many ways the community joined with the schools to show their support. Our fundraising goal -- $15,000 -- was surpassed and quadrupled with matching funds from donors and sponsors. While this is a small slice of our overall fundraising commitment of $1 million+ to support student programs this year, successfully meeting our event goal means we are able to bolster the incredibly impactful Classroom Grants fund for teachers and school staff. We're already starting to approve requests from teachers, like Ms. Prehn at El Verano Elementary School, who is receiving multi-sensory, hands-on tools to support her Focused Learning program, which helps foster reading and literacy skills with her students.

We're honored to have welcomed the community to this event for the first time in three years and are humbled by the support we receive to fulfill our mission on behalf of the students and schools of Sonoma Valley. We couldn't do this without the guests, donors, supporters, sponsors, and friends, and we are proud to continue our work of putting the unified in our district's middle name.

Angela Ryan, executive director,
Sonoma Valley Education Foundation