SVEF believes that every child deserves a strong social, emotional and academic foundation to launch them toward a bright future.

OUR MISSION    |    OUR MODEL    |    OUR HISTORY   

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Our Mission

The Sonoma Valley Education Foundation exists to cultivate community support and raise funds to enable the potential of every student.

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Our Model

We work collaboratively with school district and nonprofit partners throughout the community. Our approach places the student at the center, with our organizations, services, and programs arrayed around them. We assess community-level gaps and needs, and identify and leverage the strengths and assets of each participating organization to create, expand, partner and collaborate on aligning our individual resources to achieve our shared goal.

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Our Shared Goal 
That every student who attends our public schools is safe, healthy and engaged, so they can show up to school ready to learn.

Our Priorities
Based on our community's feedback and the strengths and assets of our partners, we have selected three priorities to begin this work: Mental Health and Social-Emotional Support, Extended Learning Opportunities, and Family Engagement.

Our Programs

• Classroom Grants: A fund exclusively for teachers and classroom staff to provide one-time grants of up to $1,000 to support instruction, supplies, field trips, or professional development. 
• Empowerment Academy: An exciting new partnership between the Mentoring Alliance and the Boys & Girls Club to provide tutoring, mental health services and SEL programming after school at Sonoma Valley High School.
• Alliance for Youth Wellness:  A collaborative effort of the Sonoma Valley Education Foundation, Sonoma Valley Family Therapy, Sonoma Valley Unified School District and Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley to provide free mental health services for youth in Sonoma Valley.
  
• We have more new programs and capacity building activities to be announced soon--stay tuned!

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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.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

As a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the quality of life in our community, it is essential that we confront the effects of racism and discrimination, accept that we have work to do and recognize that we bear collective responsibility for dismantling systemic racism and injustice in our community. Therefore, we are committing to:

1. Creating an organizational culture and set of values that reflects the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice
2. Ensuring our staffing, spaces, programming, outreach, communications, board membership and other organizational aspects are welcoming and inclusive of diverse perspectives
3. Actively working to center and engage marginalized voices
4. Making this work ongoing by adopting an equity lens in strategic planning.

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