The Napa Valley is famous for growing grapes and creating amazing wine. However, the most important resource that we grow in our valley is our children, and the most valuable creations to come forth from our region are the well-prepared and vital young adults that our children become. This year the Napa Valley Education Foundation is celebrating its 30th year of ensuring that the students of the Napa Valley Unified School District (NVUSD) are engaged and equipped for educational excellence. NVEF has been able to invest in engaging and equipping our Valley’s students and their teachers only through the generosity of our local community and the significant volunteer contributions of hundreds of Napa Valley residents. NVEF is the recipient of the funds raised by the annual Race for Education, which attracted nearly 800 participants at its most recent 5k/10k race in May. The foundation’s Music Connection program is also supported by the proceeds of the Napa Valley BBQ and Beer Battle, which takes place this year on June 30, and is hosted by the Napa Valley Marriott. This year’s event promises to be another fun and delicious event with competing chefs Pat Burke and Stephen Barber, as well as a beer tasting from a dozen microbreweries. Tickets are available at www.nvef.org. The Napa Valley Education Foundation was created in 1983 by a group of twenty-five persons representing all segments of the community. Originally known as the Napa Valley Unified Education Foundation, the group, in its first year, awarded mini-grants to teachers, held a student leadership conference, organized a dinner-dance fundraiser at Mondavi Winery and hosted the inaugural Napa Valley Wine Festival. Over the past three decades, NVEF has given more than $1.5 million in grants to teachers in classrooms throughout American Canyon, Napa and Yountville. Teachers at all grade levels have used these funds to implement innovative ways to teach language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education and the arts. They have purchased everything from art supplies to flip cameras, from tadpoles to P.E. equipment, from smartboards to dance costumes. While individual teachers from every one of the NVUSD’s twentynine schools have been recipients of this funding over the years, NVEF is celebrating its 30th anniversary by making grants to every school as a whole in the district in 2013. While equipping teachers, NVEF has also emphasized the importance of engaging students through the arts. Exposure to the arts, such as music, teaches valuable 21st century skills of 68 www. n A PAVA L L E Y L I F E magaz ine . c o m Lead instructor Bill Gantt leads a practice session at the NVEF Summer Camp last year. creativity and collaboration. In 1997, NVEF began the Music Connection program, which now serves more than 3,000 students annually. Every year, nearly 500 students rent instruments from the Music Connection, and one-third of those rentals are to students who qualify for the NVUSD’s free or reduced lunch program. The families of these students can rent instruments for ten dollars a month, and in some cases even this fee is waived. In addition, the Music Connection supplements the music instruction children receive during the school day, hosting workshops, concerts and choral festivals for all grade levels. Kristin Anderson, Music Connection Program Manager, says, “I hear often from NVUSD music teachers that they used to see a significant decline in participation as students transitioned from elementary to middle to high school. Since we began offering our workshops and concerts, teachers say that dropout rate is way down.” NVEF also served as a catalyst for the creation of the Napa Valley Writing Project, which evolved from a 2011 teacher grant to become a districtwide program. This year the NVWP provided 800 elementary, middle and high school students at sixteen schools with the opportunity to write and publish their own novels. These young authors recently held a book signing at the Lincoln Theater as part of the Napa Valley Young Writers Festival, where they also got to meet and learn from local published authors. community life Engaged & Equipped for educational excellence The Napa Valley Education Foundation celebrates three decades of supporting Napa Valley students
NVLife_JulyAug_2013
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