For all of you students wanting community service hours, you can come by the lot tomorrow after school and help with set up and we will give you the hours. We will need many people to put all the tents back up and get them watered and the lot back in working order.

Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused. It has been a very sad day for the SV Kiwanis tents! What a mess! See you all at the lot tomorrow at 3:30pm!

We will need volunteers this Sunday, November 20 from 1:00 – 4:00 pm, at the Christmas Tree Lot on the corner of Scotts Valley Drive and Disc Drive. We will be setting up tents with Scotts Valley Kiwanis.

More volunteers will be needed on Wednesday November 23 for set up.  We will be unloading the truck from Oregon, trimming the tree bases and setting up the tree stands.

We have opened up more spots on the sign up sheet, so please sign up for this fun event!

Parents should go ahead and sign up for an adult slot – we do need adults on hand for each shift to supervise student volunteers and help with some of the heavy lifting and money!  Those parents should feel free to bring their students along – and those high school and middle school students will receive community service hours for working!  Please note – only 15 hours of community service time can be earned through an individual event – so no matter how many hours students volunteer, they will get a maximum of 15 hours credit.  Of course we’d love those students to spend as much time as they want working on the lot!

We will also need a lot of bodies on tree unloading day – of all ages and sizes.  As soon as we know the exact timing, we’ll send out an update.  Student volunteers on that day (probably Wednesday, November 23rd) will also get CS hours.

Sign up sheet is here.

Tis the season to enjoy all of our holidays, family and friends! I personally wish all of you all the very best for the holidays and a Happy New Year to come.

As I approach the end of my SVEF Presidency, I would like to thank the hundreds of volunteers that help to make the Scotts Valley Educational Foundation a continuing success. We have such great support from our schools, students, families, service clubs and the community. I can’t thank you all enough for you efforts and devotion to the Scotts Valley Educational Foundation

This year we have raised $110,606 that will all go our schools. We raise money through our events and Dollar a Day campaign. See the breakdown below:

• Mt. Charlie Challenge – $29,608
• Business Partnership Program – $5,166
• Dollar A Day Campaign – $57,885
• Community Day – $14,988
• Miscellaneous donations – $2,959

We estimate that we will make over $10,000 on the tree lot (not included in the amount above).

I am please to announce that Allison Niday will be the new SVEF President for the New Year. Allison’s energy and commitment will keep SVEF a vital community organization.

We will not hold our December meeting this month will will resume January 20th.

Charlotte Multer

SVEF Tree Lot Volunteer Procedures

Please come and support Scotts Valley public schools by purchasing your trees, wreaths and mistletoe at our annual Christmas Tree Lot on the corner of Scotts Valley Drive and Disc Drive. The lot opens the day after Thanksgiving and will be open four days a week until we are sold out.  Santa will also make a visit to our lot on Saturday November 27 from 1-4 p.m.

Opening Day Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The weekly days and times are as follows:
Thursday 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Please look for opportunities to volunteer on mysignup.com. The student slots are filled but we need more adults. You can sign up and bring your child with you and they will get community service hours. It is a really fun family event! If you are already signed up to work please take a moment to read the procedure guidelines here.

Christmas Tree Time!!! Please come and support Scotts Valley public schools by purchasing your trees, wreaths and mistletoe at our annual Christmas Tree Lot on the corner of Scotts Valley Drive and Disc Drive. The lot opens the day after Thanksgiving. Trees over 8 feet must be special ordered by November 10th by emailing Linda Benko. Please look for opportunities to volunteer on mysignup.com.

Scotts Valley Educational Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit fundraising organization that raises money for Scotts Valley Public Schools.

Who we are

Our board is made up of 17 – 19 members. We have parents of our students, community members, teachers, principals, and administration from within our school district.

Our executives

We’re always looking for more help, and we have some openings available on our current board for next year. The board consists of the following positions: President, Vice President, Recording Secretary, Treasurer, Auditor, Marketing Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator, and Directors.

How we raise our money

We host key fundraising events such as the Mt. Charlie Challenge, Ice Cream Social, Christmas Tree Lot, and Letter Campaign. We also are often a part of other organizations events. For example, the Rotary had Oktoberfest and contributed to SVEF. Kiwanis held Music in the Park in combination with SVEF. San Augustin shared their donations from the Angels Auction with SVEF. The Tutoring Club and Elite Martial Arts donate member initiation fees to SVEF when mentioning us.

What we do with the money

We keep a reserve of cash for operating expenses.  We roll a percentage of our annual income into our Endowment Fund that was created in 2009. The balance we can distribute to Scotts Valley Unified School District to save a program of our choosing.

How we decide what to fund

Every spring we research and analyze what is needed to help the schools. We get recommendations from the principals and we discuss as a board to make our decisions. We traditionally have not funded salaries directly. We have funded saving the Music Program, Libraries, Technology, and the Dollar-a-Day Program. We try to contribute to all four schools in our district evenly.

We occasionally have a donation that is given for a particular school and we just pass it through. As an example, for a few years The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz had a client that wanted to donate a fairly large sum anonymously to Brook Knoll Elementary School and SVMS. There was a few stipulations and we had to handle special reporting on it. For SVEF it was a pass through. We gained community awareness and were able to handle the donations as a non-profit entity.

Going forward

We will continue to have our regular fundraisers. We will handle the Dollar A Day program for our district. Our district needs to raise $950,000 for the general funding for year 2011/12 in order to stay where we will be for year 2010/11. We need to do this through a Dollar A Day campaign in conjunction with the SVUSD moving forward on a Parcel Tax.

To get involved

We are have our next SVEF Meeting on April 15th and there is a collective group of parents, teachers, board members and administration personnel coming up with the plan on what steps to implement for Dollar a Day. Email Charlotte if you would like to be involved in the campaign.

For Parcel Tax campaign you can contact Michael Shulman, to get involved.

Donate now to Scotts Valley Educational Foundation via mail or use the donate button on any page on this website. You may also do a recurring payment through our website through our Help Us page.