WriterCoach Connection

Joseph and Vera Long Foundation says yes to WCC in Oakland

The Joseph and Vera Long Foundation told us they liked what they saw about our program in Oakland, and they weren't kidding, backing up their words with a generous $15,000 grant on Dec. 4 to support our writer coaching in Oakland this year and to help us plan future expansion in the district. 

The severely constricted district budget has vaporized funding for support programs in Oakland schools, and so for the time being, we are dependent entirely on outside support, grants and donations, to keep our coaches sitting next to students in Oakland classrooms. We are deeply grateful to the Joseph and Vera Long Foundation for helping us do just that.

Bob Menzimer

Ed. Fund affirms its support of WCC

The West Contra Costa Public Education Fund (Ed. Fund) has partnered with us in innumerable ways in the past year, fostering connections for us through such projects as the West County College Access Network (WCCAN) and the West County Getting Ready for College Conference. The latest expression of their commitment to collaboration is a grant of $1,000 to help fill the remaining budget gap in our program at Portola Middle School in El Cerrito.

Funding for WCC at Portola this year has required the fitting together of many interlocking puzzle pieces, and the Ed. Fund responded with alacrity when we asked them to help us complete the Portola budget picture. The staff at the Ed. Fund reminds me very much of our own group -- smart, talented, dedicated, and a pleasure to work with. We so appreciate their support of WCC!

Bob Menzimer

Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation continues support of WCC

The Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation has awarded CAFL a two-year $20,000 grant to support WriterCoach Connection in Contra Costa County. This gift represents the second round of funding for WCC from the Foundation, which was instrumental in helping us establish a strong foothold in El Cerrito in 2011-12, in the program’s crucial second year at El Cerrito High School, and in planning expansion of the program for the first time to Portola Middle School in El Cerrito. This grant is especially important to us because it allocates $10,000 to support WCC in Contra Costa County for next year, helping to ensure the continuity that is so crucial in maximizing our program’s impact.  

We are deeply grateful to the Dean & Margaret Lesher Foundation for this generous support, and for the confidence they have expressed in the difference we are making for West County students and teachers.

Bob Menzimer

The El Cerrito community helps keep coaches at Portola Middle School

In a rare and heartily welcomed move, the El Cerrito City Council voted unanimously on Dec. 4 to approve a $2,500 grant to help keep our writer coaches at Portola Middle School in El Cerrito this year.

WCC began coaching at Portola in a pilot program last spring and the challenge, as always, was to find the funding to keep the program going for the crucial second year, often a pivotal point in our program’s history at a school. In the second year, the program really takes hold and establishes the foundation for a sustained presence through the years.

With school and district funds squeezed by the state’s chronic shortage of education funding, money for academic support programs is hard to come by. For WriterCoach Connection to continue at Portola, it needed supplementary funding.

The El Cerrito community, in the form of the GoPortola volunteer organization, led by Portola parent Alonn Ilan, raised $2,320 to help keep WCC at the school. El Cerrito Councilmember Rebecca Benassini, a strong education advocate, then proposed that the City Council help provide some of the remaining program funding. The City of El Cerrito doesn’t typically fund education programs directly, but emails and calls from parents, teachers, coaches, and community members, as well as GoPortola's fundraising efforts, helped convince Council members of the importance of WCC to the school, students, and community.  

We are grateful for the support of the school, community, and City Council — and we're thrilled to continue working with Portola students!

Bob Menzimer

Unique Holiday Gifts from WCC!

 

Rather than exchanging knick-knacks with friends and family this holiday season, give gifts that help change a student’s future!

Add special meaning to your holiday giving when you visit our new Online Gift Catalog. Choose from 12 gifts that illustrate aspects of WCC’s work — from The Mighty Pencil to The Star Student to The Flash of Inspiration and The Terrific Teacher.

Every gift represents a donation to WCC's overall mission and comes with a customized gift card for your recipient. There's no better way to commemorate a special occasion and share our work with students far and wide! 

View the complete Gift Catalog > 

Congratulations to Our Online Raffle Winners

Congratulations to our four raffle winners: Carol Davis, Zelda Bronstein, Corey Limbach, and Virginia Lim! Each has won a pair of tickets to the Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation event on Dec 10.

Thank you to everyone who entered the raffle and to Berkeleyside.com for donating eight tickets. Through your collective generosity, our raffle raised $4800 in support of WCC!

You can always donate WriterCoach Connection online anytime. Every donation helps provide one-on-one coaching with even more students.

Christine McGuinness

 

 

One Donation. Two Tickets. Three Michaels!

Donate to WriterCoach Connection today, and you will be entered to win two tickets to The Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation, hosted by Berkeleyside on December 10!

On November 15, WCC will announce four lucky donors who have each won a pair of tickets to this terrific conversation between authors Michael Chabon, Michael Pollan, and Michael Lewis at Berkeley Repertory Theatre—a prize worth $200!

DONATE NOW for a chance to win >

A donation of only $5 enters you in the drawing, but the more you give, the more chances you have to win—we'll throw in one extra entry with each $25. A $5 donation earns you one chance, a $25 earns you 6 chances, and a $50 donation earns you 12 chances. All donations for this raffle support the work of WriterCoach Connection: helping kids gain skill and confidence in their writing.

This is a sold-out show—so these are the only 4 pairs of tickets left!

The Three Michaels: A Berkeley Conversation is a benefit to support 826 Oakland, a new youth writing program in the East Bay. We extend heartfelt thanks to Berkeleyside for hosting the event and donating the tickets in support of WCC. We're looking forward to a terrific evening with the three Michaels!

 

More about the 3 Michaels (biographies from Amazon.com):

Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Model World, Wonder Boys, Werewolves in Their Youth, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Maps and Legends, Gentlemen of the Road, and the middle grade book Summerland. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children. You can visit Michael online at www.michaelchabon.com. 

Michael Lewis, the author of Boomerang, Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Panic, Home Game and The Big Short, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their three children.

Michael Pollan is the author of five books: Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire, which received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best nonfiction work of 2001 and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon, and the national bestsellers, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. A longtime contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. His writing on food and agriculture has won numerous awards, including the Reuters/World Conservation Union Global Award in Environmental Journalism, the James Beard Award, and the Genesis Award from the American Humane Association.

Christine McGuinness

Making the case for WCC in El Cerrito

Thank you to all the coaches who came and spoke on behalf of WCC in El Cerrito! In addition to Executive Director Robert Menzimer, Communications Director Christine McGuinness, and El Cerrito Site Coordinator Lynda Frank, GoPortola fundraising leader Alonn Ilon and coaches Mary DeShaw, Ann Nutt, and Bobbie Ohs Dowling spoke to the El Cerrito City Council in support of WCC.

 

Students and parents support WCC in El Cerrito. Photo by Robert Menzimer.

Alonn Ilan (at the podium) leads GoPortola's support for WCC in El Cerrito. Photo by Robert Menzimer.

 

 Christine McGuinness

Dean Witter Foundation awards grant to WCC and El Cerrito High

WCC has a new reason to celebrate—we've been awarded an exciting grant to assist in continuing the WCC program in El Cerrito!

The $20,000 grant WCC will receive is the second generous contribution from the Dean Witter Foundation in three years. The initial grant supported program expansion and assessment.

This year's grant came in response to a joint proposal from CAFL and El Cerrito High School. The Dean Witter Foundation focuses its education funding on specific schools with promising or established effective leadership. The Foundation chose to support WCC in El Cerrito's schools in part because the introduction and growth of WCC at El Cerrito High School made a strong positive impression. It was also noteworthy that the WCC program has since been adopted by Portola Middle School, also in El Cerrito.

We are deeply grateful to the Dean Witter Foundation and all our supporters!

Haas Sr. Fund continues support of WCC

Members of the board of directors of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund have voted to continue their generous support of Writer Coach Connection, with a $30,000 grant for the 2012-13 school year. We will use this funding to increase our organizational capacity and to support WCC at our nine school sites in four districts for the coming school year.

We deeply appreciate the support of Haas Sr. The foundation has been instrumental in strengthening our organization and program for the past several years, enabling us to significantly increase the number of students we serve with WriterCoach Connection.

Bob Menzimer