SVEF believes that every child deserves an inspiring education that challenges the mind and opens opportunities for the future.

OUR MISSION    |    GRANTS & FUNDING    |    OUR HISTORY    |    OUR PROGRAMS    |    BARN TALKS

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Our Mission

SVEF strives to help every student find inspiration and success in the classroom and to graduate well prepared for college and a career. 

​Our mission is to enrich the student experience by partnering with the Sonoma Valley Unified School District as the primary fundraising and volunteer resource for innovative programs. We focus on results and report to our donors and community.

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Grants & Funding

While we are an independent foundation, we work with the Sonoma Valley Unified School District (SVUSD) to determine where and how to implement programs that have a broad and measurable impact on student success. We also administer grants at the campus, classroom, and individual levels. Our funding is directed through these specific channels:

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Major Program Grants
Our largest grants support high-impact, multi-year programs throughout the school district. These grants address clear, measurable objectives with the potential for significant impact on student outcomes, along with strong support from district and program personnel. Examples: Preschool for All and Summer Literacy Academy.

Classroom Grants
One-time grants of up to $500 that support instruction, curriculum, or special projects. Teachers and staff are encouraged to apply to serve a need outside the normal operating budgets of the schools and and that will benefit a number of students, possibly across future years. Examples from 2019 include include materials for students at Creekside High School to participate in a “Budget Challenge” to simulate the real world of bills and financial responsibility; a collaboration between SVHS’s Agriculture and Culinary programs to teach “Whole Animal Butchery”; a set of Google cardboard virtual reality headsets for Geography students to take students on virtual field trips; and a green screen production and animation studio for middle schoolers.

Principal Grants
Grants of up to $1,500 per school to support school-specific initiatives not covered by program and classroom grants and are outside the normal operating budget of the school.

PTO Grants
Grants of up to $1,500 made to school PTOs organizing volunteers for SVEF’s Red & White Ball in August of each year.

College Scholarships
$1500 scholarships awarded to two college-bound students in the Engineering, Design and Technology pathway.

Student Internships
Paid summer internships at SVEF to support SVEF programming and event planning.

Sponsorships
SVEF provides sponsorship funding for the Student Films program at the SV International Film Festival, and the SV Authors Festival Student Day author presentations at SVHS and Adele and Altimira Middle Schools.

Donor-Directed Grants
Grants restricted by a donor for specific programs outside our regular programs or classroom grants. ​

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Our History

SVEF was founded in 1993 by five public school parents seeking to support and enhance their students’ educational opportunities. SVEF began by providing grants to teachers and administrators, and sponsoring community initiatives, such as family night at the local library branch and school orientations for Latino families. Throughout 26 years of providing support to SVUSD schools, SVEF has invested over $20 million dollars in Sonoma Valley public schools.

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Our Programs

Preschool for All

​Children ages 3-5 participate in high-quality learning experiences focusing on all areas of learning: physical, cognitive, social, emotional, language, and literacy. Students learn the social and academic skills necessary to be successful students: how to listen well, share, participate, compromise, be respectful of others, and problem solve. Children who receive high-quality preschool education enter kindergarten with pre-reading skills, rich vocabularies, strong basic math skills, and are ready to learn.

Valley Vibes Orchestra (ViVO)

An El Sistema based orchestra program, ViVO is a daily, two-hour per day after-school music program for students in grades three to high school. Kindergarten - 2nd graders participate in a Pre-Orchestra Program (POP) three times a week, one hour per day. Student musicians participate in a minimum of one performance per month and learn crucial social-emotional and cognitive skills in addition to basic music skills in string and wind instruments.

Freshman Teams

​Each year, Sonoma Valley High School divides the freshman class of approximately 350 students into three “teams” or three smaller learning communities designed to help 9th-grade students transition smoothly to the high school environment. The teams provide a collaboration period for team teachers allowing teachers to monitor progress, provide academic support and intervention, arrange field trips and team activities for student engagement, celebration, and recognition of student work.

Engineering, Design & Technology Academy

​Students experience engaging, hands-on nationally recognized Project Lead the Way (PLTW) engineering curriculum while designing, testing, and redesigning projects in small groups to solve real-world problems. Students also connect with industry professionals while applying their coursework to real-life work in the field through guest speakers, work-site tours, job shadows, and internships. Students attend classes in the Maker Lab, equipped with industry-standard software and technology: CAD, AutoCAD, Revit, Solidworks, a laser cutter, 3D printers, a 3D carving machine, a vinyl cutter, and more. Students graduate with real-life problem-solving skills for college and career success.

Summer Literacy Academy

The Summer Literacy Academy serves 300 K-3rd-grade students from all five elementary schools who are performing below grade level in reading achievement and at risk of falling farther behind. The program includes evidence-based materials allowing targeted instruction of the earliest foundational reading skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency. The instructional design assures for small group instruction of these skills. The leveled curricular materials allows each child to be instructed at their current reading level.

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Barn Talks

Barn Talks is a speaker series hosted by the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation featuring accomplished alums of Sonoma Valley High School speaking on a wide variety of topics in really cool barns. 
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Proceeds from Barn Talks benefit student programs, from preschool to high school. The series serves as a way for students to learn about a variety of exciting careers and for community members to meet fascinating and accomplished people with roots in our small town of Sonoma. ​

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How Sonoma Has Changed
Stories and Reflections of a Changing Valley
​February 27, 2020

Gaye LeBaron is a native Californian and a 69-year resident of Sonoma County. She wrote her first column for The Press Democrat, after several years as a reporter, in 1959 and was the daily columnist until her retirement in 2001. She continues to contribute a “historical perspective” column twice monthly.
She is the author, with three other researchers, of a two-volume local history -- “Santa Rosa, a 19th Century Town,” and “Santa Rosa -- a 20th Century Town,” and, with Vermont author Bart Casey, “The Wonder Seekers of Fountaingrove,” a history of Santa Rosa’s 19th century Utopia.

Gaye lectured for 35 years on Sonoma County history in SRJC’s Community Education program and has taught several courses for Sonoma State University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Her husband of 56 years, photographer and SRJC art faculty member John LeBaron, died in 2014.

​Born in Humboldt County, she moved with her family to the Sonoma Valley in 1950 and graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 1953. She received an AA degree from SRJC in 1955 and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957.

Bill Lynch is the retired former editor and publisher of The Sonoma Index-Tribune. A lifelong Sonoma Valley resident, he was born at Burndale Hospital, which was Sonoma’s first hospital. He attended local schools, graduating from Sonoma Valley High School in 1960. During his high school years and college summers, he worked as a reporter and photographer for the Index-Tribune.

He earned his bachelor’s degree at University of California at Santa Barbara, then served in Vietnam as an officer in the United States Navy.

In 1969, upon completion of his military service he returned to Sonoma and his family newspaper business where he worked first as a reporter and photographer and gradually took on more responsibilities. In addition, he became a volunteer fire fighter for the City of Sonoma Fire Department, and served on a variety of local volunteer boards and organizations.

His tenure covering the news of Sonoma Valley, including city government, schools, and our local hospital, spans more than 50 years.

Since his retirement as editor and publisher in 2012, he has continued to write columns for the Sonoma Index-Tribune, and work on several book projects. In 2014, he added a new section to the local history book, The Sonoma Valley Story, first published by his father, Robert M. Lynch in 1997. In 2017, he published his book “My Sonoma – Valley of the Moon,” an insider's look at his hometown and the people who made it a very special place.
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Bill and his wife, Dottie, have four children and nine grandchildren.

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