School Fundraisers

Get a jump on your holiday shopping, and get excited about reading at Pleasant Valley Elementary School's 2009 Book Fair—Destination Book Fair: Read Around the World. Organized in cooperation with Scholastic, the Book Fair offers hundreds of different titles for all ages—even parents, with many at bargain prices, in both paperback and hardcover. Popular titles and series include Flat Stanley, Magic Tree House, I Spy, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and more.

Destination Book Fair takes place from November 16 through 20 in the multi-purpose room at Novato's Pleasant Valley Elementary School, located at 755 Sutro Avenue (between Center and Vineyard Roads). Hours are Monday-Thursday 8 am to 2 pm and Friday from 8 am to 1 pm, with a family shopping night on Wednesday, November 18 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. The Fair is open to the public, and inexpensive Scholastic books made great gifts and stocking stuffers.

Books may be purchased with cash, check, or credit card, and all proceeds go to support the school. You can also purchase books to donate directly to the school library and classrooms.

Residents of Novato will have two opportunities to help the perennially cash-strapped Novato Unified School District this week. For reasons not totally clear, Novato schools receive considerably less funding per student than other districts in the county; NUSD gets $8,346 per student while other Marin school districts get anywhere from $9,000 to $12,000. For more information, here's a link to the NUSD's resolution and abbreviated text of Measure A (PDF).

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 2, Novato voters will vote on Measure A, which increases the annual parcel tax by $96 a year. Novato's parcel tax, at $155, is one of the lowest in the US, and doesn't automatically increase on a yearly basis like those in the Dixie, Lagunitas, Ross, Reed, and other school districts. When you break it down, that's just a little over a quarter per day, probably something you'd just end up leaving in the tip jar at your favorite coffee place. Let's help keep Novato a desirable place for families to live and help the schools keep (in spite of their low funding) their excellent overall reputation!

Help Old Navy support Novato's schools! The Old Navy store in Novato is accepting donations of all sorts of school supplies to give to cash strapped Novato schools. Bring in any new school supply from now through March 15, and Old Navy will give you a 30% off coupon for a purchase made between March 12 and March 15.

It's a worthwhile way to help out the schools and save some money on those clothes your kids seem to grow out of every six weeks or so.

Two Marin companies, both started by mompreneurs, have partnered to help your school become waste-free and raise money at the same time. What's Cooking and Fabkins will bring a variety of waste-free products, such as SIGG bottles, Klean Kanteens, wrap-n-mats, lunch totes, BYO Bags and Fabkins kids' cloth napkins, and sell them at your San Francisco Bay Area school during drop-off, pick up, or anytime convenient for you.  They will donate a percentage of the total pre-tax revenue from the sale. You can also extend the sale to families online for a limited time. read more »