davis schools foundation

Another trip around the sun

On New Year’s Eve, we encapsulated the past year in a 15-thread Twitter communique. Here’s a summary:

‘tis the end of the year and thus time to recollect our 2019 trip around the sun. We are extremely grateful to our collective community for its support in a record-setting Repower year. A few highlights to share …

We remain humbled, thrive on the opportunity to earn trust, to enrich full and meaningful lives. Solar simpletons, yes, but beyond helping neighbors save money and reduce their carbon footprints, our commitment to strengthen our community is galvanized by the day. Happy 2020.

YoloShines: NAMI-Yolo

There are a lot of rewarding and fun virtues of doing what we do: Helping friends and neighbors achieve energy independence (while slashing their carbon footprint and saving thousands of dollars) is extremely gratifying. At the top (of the Repower fun/rewarding list) may be when we ask homeowners to select a local nonprofit for our YoloShines program.

And, this time we have a new twist. Repower homeowners John and Alice Provost asked if we could split our $500 donation among two organizations. Of course.

John and Alice selected the Davis School Arts Foundation (read more about our prior support of DSAF here) and Yolo-NAMI, a new organization in our basket of beneficiaries. Here's what John and Alice had to say about Yolo-NAMI:

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is a national organization with local chapters throughout the country, including one in Yolo County. Yolo NAMI works with cities and counties in Yolo County as well as private organizations that provide services to residents of Yolo County who suffer from some type of mental illness. This is a population that is greatly underserved and often suffers in isolation due to the nature of their illnesses. Yolo NAMI provides much needed assistance to these individuals and is a very worthy organization to support.

Thank you, John and Alice, for making our community a better place.

YoloShines: Davis School Arts Foundation

When given the opportunity to speak to students at UCD, be it about innovation, entrepreneurship, or clean energy, one of my favorite stories to relay engages children and creativity. Quick synopsis:

Creative consultant Gordon MacKenzie, during speaking engagements with elementary school students, would ask kindergarteners, “How many of you are artists?” All would raise their hand. But with older kids, an interesting trend develops. Fewer and fewer students identify themselves as artists as they grow up. By sixth grade, only a small percentage raises their hand in response to the same question of being an artist. As kids grow up, they feel the judgmental pressures from others and don’t want to take the risk of being judged as weird.

Unfortunately, our children become normalized to think they can't be or do something. Sad but true, particularly in our community where the pressure to succeed academically is so intense.

Fortunately, there are organizations like the Davis School Arts Foundation (DSAF), an all-volunteer, non-profit organization whose mission it is to raise money for art and music education in the Davis public schools. DSAF believes the value of visual and performing arts is equal to that of other curriculum and essential for the education of the whole child. 

On behalf of RepowerYolo homeowners (and parents of DJUSD children) Matt Donner and Kimberly Grogan, we are pleased to donate $500 to DSAF. Matt's take on the Foundation:

As a musician and artist myself, I am happy and proud to offer any and all support to this worthy cause! We tend to get caught up in academics and athletics here in Davis and it's worth supporting the arts as well!

Please join RepowerYolo, Matt and Kimberly in supporting DSAF and germinating future artists and musicians in our community.

 

YoloShines: Davis Schools Foundation

When homeowners in Yolo County go solar, we ask them to identify their favorite local nonprofit organization (aka, YoloShines). On behalf of El Macero residents Alan and Yuki Oshima, we are pleased to donate $500 to the Davis Schools Foundation. Here’s what the Oshimas had to say about DSF:

We realize the local schools can use all the help that they get for enriching the school experience. We were fortunate to have our four daughters attend local Davis schools. Three attended UC Davis, one Sacramento State University. All graduated with degrees. All are married have children and are working. We're very proud of them all.

This donation hits home with me, as the product of DJUSD schools (Birch Lane, Holmes, DHS) and the parent of an Emerson 8th grader and DHS junior. When you're the product of something great, oftentimes you take it for granted; when you're the parent of kids (involved in something great), too often you do not appreciate how good your children have it. I fall in to both camps!

Davis schools are great -- in my opinion -- because our community cares. We prioritize education, we celebrate accomplishment, and we support our schools.

Please join us in supporting Davis Schools Foundation, whether you're a product, parent or beneficiary of Davis schools. Click here to learn how you can support DSF, or contact DSF President Lori Duisenberg: 530-219-9033 info@davisschoolsfoundation.org.

And, thanks again to the Oshimas for making Yolo shine!

A great day, leading up to the Big Day of Giving

We have the fortune of helping homeowners go solar. In so doing, there are three particularly gratifying outcomes: Saving homeowners money, improving the environment (through clean energy), and giving back to our community.

Last Wednesday was a great day: We mailed ten $500 checks — $5,000 in total — to local causes, including Yolo Food Bank, Davis Schools Foundation, River City Rowing Club, Yolo Crisis Nursery, Progress Ranch, Davis High Girls Water Polo, and Make it Happen Yolo County.

The donations were made on behalf of RepowerYolo homeowners through our YoloShines program, aka our 2016 Big Year of Giving. Homeowners are not just repowering their homes and benefiting our planet, they’re also repowering our community. For this we are extremely grateful.

Leading up to the May 3 Big Day of Giving, we will share a bit about these tremendous Yolo nonprofits. In so doing, we invite you to join us in supporting the organizations and strengthening the fabric of our community. When you do so, a great day will be yours too!

YoloShines: Repowering community organizations

When we conceived RepowerYolo, we made two conscious commitments:

1. We will not solicit homeowners. No advertising, cold calls, direct mail or commission sales people.

2. We will reinvest in and support local nonprofit organizations; in other words (excuse the trite phase), repower our community.

The obvious residue of not knocking on doors, cold-calling homeowners, or peppering mail boxes with sales collateral is that we will sell less solar. We can live with that, because we strongly believe markets are conversations and nobody likes to be solicited (sans their permission). And, by eliminating sales/marketing/advertising costs, we significantly reduce the cost of going solar for friends and neighbors.

Furthermore, many an eye has been rolled at our community fundraising efforts: Why are you donating large amounts of money to nonprofits (when you could/should be pocketing the money to send your kids to college)? In simple terms, we believe RepowerYolo is a community program and our commitment to — and support of — local nonprofit organizations is a community dividend.

This community dividend is growing. To date, we have donated upwards of $23,000 to more than 25 local causes on behalf of RepowerYolo homeowners. And, in 2016, we created YoloShines: Every time a homeowner goes solar, we donate $500 in their name to their favorite Yolo County nonprofit.

The first four recipients of YoloShines donations in 2016 are Progress Ranch, Yolo Crisis Nursery, Davis Schools Foundation, and River City Rowing Club. 2016 is off to a great start … the future is bright for both homeowners who go solar and nonprofit organizations that stitch the fabric of our community.

The Opportunity to Grow Fresh Food and Understanding

[Originally published October 22, 2015]

Repower Yolo is a Gold Sponsor of Yolo Farm to Fork's School Programs. When you go solar with us, we'll donate $500.00.

The benefits of all the love, sweat, time, dollars and meticulous care showered upon Holmes Junior High’s garden are rippling outward. Integrated, experiential learning about the beauty of fresh, nutritious food and the art of preparing it deliciously are becoming available to all. Who threw the first stone that is causing all the ripples? Keri Hawkins, Garden Coordinator of Holmes Junior High’s gardening project.

"Thank you for supporting our school gardens! They are a wonderful place for children to unwind and learn through doing."

--Keri Hawkins, Garden Coordinator, Holmes Junior High

In 2012, Keri inherited a neglected, overgrown, weedy mess. But she saw the potential right away to cultivate far more than vegetables, herbs and flowers. The art and cooking classrooms opened to the garden with its courtyard, and the garden could benefit both with gorgeous subjects for still lifes and fresh ingredients for culinary masterpieces and learning about nutrition.

She envisioned the impact the garden could have on the lives of children of all physical and mental abilities. Keri also saw the potential of the garden to provide the enriching experience for collaboration amongst the diverse students. Keri said that her aim is “to make the garden accessible to students of all abilities and to have the students working side by side.”

In 2013, Keri and the students replanted the garden to be low maintenance. In 2014, she had the idea to sell pumpkins in order to raise the money for the gardening program. The Esparto Lions donated the pumpkins and $1,000 was raised, with a matching grant fromTandem Grants. “The garden is truly a community garden. The more people involved, the greater the community ownership of the garden,” she said.

Keri applied her Masters in Architecture to designing tables that were accessible by wheelchair. She gave the designs to Holmes' tech teacher, Lance Gunnersen, and his students, who built the tables and entered them in the State Fair. After the fair, the tables came home to the courtyard next to the garden.

Keri then designed a potting table accessible to all users. She and her enthusiastic team pulled out everything from the existing Zen Garden, a part of the overall garden and courtyard areas, and Dave Leveque, Holmes teacher Deanna Leveque’s husband, built the framework for the Zen Garden. Sadly, with the drought, the water to the garden was cut-off and everything died.

After the potting table came a three-tier planter box, again with the idea that students of all abilities would be able to access it. Avery Phimmasehn, a BoyScout, helped design the planter box, and then built it to achieve his Eagle Scout rank. The planter now boasts seasonal beauty and bounty, replete with beets, broccoli, carrots, celery, kale, lettuce, kohlrabi and cilantro, which are quite often enjoyed immediately after picking.  Special Ed life skills are taught in the garden, where students learn about the tools and feel the utter satisfaction of using them.

The garden and courtyard are thriving, but there one more step before it can be truly accessible to all. In wet weather, the wheelchairs get stuck in the muddy pathways. Keri said that, to remedy this, they need the garden's remaining area graded. And they also need decomposed granite for the space. Please EMAIL KERI if you'd like to help with the grading or donate the decomposed granite. 

Yolo Farm to Fork’s Dig In Yolo! Restaurant Fundraising Campaign makes Davis Farm to School programs possible. For example, last year, Yolo Farm to Fork contributed $250 to Holmes’s garden for garden supplies and plants, with the PTA matching the amount.

These restaurants are digging in to help educate Yolo’s children to live sustainably throughout the month of October. Eat well and help Yolo’s children learn about fresh, healthy food, recycling, and respecting the planet and one another.

Bon  Appétit!

The Savory Café

722-A Main Street, Woodland

DIG IN SPECIAL: Organic Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Lamb Sogu


Café Italia (The Dancing Tomato Café)

1121 Richards Boulevard, Davis

MENTION DIG IN YOLO!


Maria’s Cantina

306 Sixth Street, Woodland

MENTION DIG IN YOLO!


Dos Coyotes (both Davis locations)

2191 Cowell Blvd., Davis | 1411 W. Covell Blvd. #7

DIG IN SPECIAL: Banh Mi Taco Plate


Jack’s Urban Eats (All Locations)

DIG IN SPECIAL: Fresh Harvest Salad


Broderick Road House

319 Sixth Street, West Sacramento

DIG IN SPECIAL: Fiesta Burger


Guinivere’s

317 Second Street, Woodland

MENTION DIG IN YOLO!


Kitchen 428

First and Bush Streets, Woodland

MENTION DIG IN YOLO!


Osteria Fasulo

2657 Portage Bay East #8, Davis

MENTION DIG IN YOLO!