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Thornhill Elementary PFC Newsletter

Volume 32, Issue 19, January 7, 2025

Thornhill ElementaryPFC NewsletterVolume 32, Issue 19, January 7, 2025

In This Issue (bolded items are new for this week)

  • From our PFC co-Presidents
  • Thunderbirds, it's Read-a-thon Time!
  • Hydrating and Building Personal Responsibility
  • Join Our First Sustainability & Beautification Team Meeting of 2025 THIS FRIDAY
  • Let’s Get these Hosted Parties Started!
  • Be Part of Something Stellar: The Auction Committee Needs Your Help!
  • Shop and Earn for Thornhill
  • Calendar of Important Dates

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From our PFC co-Presidents

Happy New Year, Thornhill!


We hope everyone enjoyed a restful and well-deserved (and very long-feeling) break. If your household is anything like ours, the kids were more than ready to return to school to reconnect with their beloved friends and teachers.


A huge thank you to our incredible PFC Hospitality co-chairs, Angela Gatdula & Philly Gatdula, for organizing and distributing the staff holiday gifts. Your efforts are truly appreciated!


As we usher in 2025, there’s so much to look forward to during the second half of the school year, with plenty of ways to get involved:

  • Read-a-thon kicks off this month—thank you to our magical librarian, Ms. Fox, for organizing this fun and engaging event!

  • In March, we’ll get together for the highly anticipated Benefit Auction & Dinner—an adult favorite. Huge shoutout to our amazing Auction Committee for their hard work in planning this event, we can’t wait to Journey to the Stars! Tickets go on sale January 27, stay tuned for more info.

  • And in April, students can look forward to the student favorite Walkathon, co-chaired by the fabulous dream team, Ms. Bunker & Ms. Gustafson.

Thank you to everyone who contributes to making our Thornhill community so vibrant and special. We are truly fortunate to have such an amazing group of parents, staff, and volunteers working together to make this school shine!! Here’s to an exciting and successful 2025!!


Save the date for our next PFC meeting via zoom on Tuesday, January 21 - we will share the agenda as it gets closer.


Warmly,

Catrina Vrankovich & Becky Gonzales

PFC co-Presidents

president@thornhillschool.org

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Thunderbirds, it's Read-a-thon Time!

Hello Thornhill community,


Hope that the break was restorative and joyful. And now to get 2025 off to a great start with the Read-a-thon from 1/21-1/31!

This event is all about supporting and celebrating our fabulous culture of reading at Thornhill. It is also a fundraiser for the PFC, which provides funding for the library and PFC staff. Any and all support is very much appreciated. But most importantly, everyone is welcome to join in the reading fun! You do not need to raise money to participate.

As part of this event, we'd love for you to join us for our fan-favorite, third annual Read & Feed! On Wednesday 1/22 from 5:30-7pm we will gather in the Multi-Purpose Room for a celebration of reading, eating and community. There will be book-based art projects with Ms. Gelbron, a delicious pizza dinner, and spaces to hang out and read together. Stay tuned for more details.

Please help us plan for food for the event by RSVPing on this google form by Wednesday, January 15.

All Thornhill students will be welcomed into the Read-a-thon with a hot cocoa packet and a Thornhill Read-a-thon bookmark to help them cozy up with a good book!

Looking forward to celebrating with you all! Please let me know if you have any questions.

With gratitude,
Ms. Fox
marie.fox@ousd.org

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Hydrating and Building Personal Responsibility

At Thornhill, we are cultivating a community where students learn personal responsibility and care for their spaces and environment. This includes developing life skills and reinforcing behaviors that promote safety, mindfulness, and accountability. A current focus is ensuring students bring a water bottle to school daily—a small but vital habit that significantly impacts your child’s well-being and our community's flow.

Why Hydration Matters: Staying hydrated is essential for children’s health and education. It supports physical health and enhances mood, memory, and attention—key factors in your child’s learning experience.

The Challenge: Many students rely on teachers and the kitchen team for cups at water stations, leading to spills, waste, and missed hydration opportunities.

Help Thornhill Teachers by ensuring your children bring a labeled water bottle to school daily. Here’s how you can support in three easy steps:

1. Ensure a Daily Habit: Remind your child to pack and bring home their water bottle each day.
2. Label Water Bottles: Clearly label your child’s water bottle to avoid loss, waste and confusion.
3. Reinforce Responsibility: Discuss the importance of caring for their belongings and staying hydrated to support their health and learning.

By reinforcing this simple habit at home and school, we can foster students' personal responsibility and care.

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Join Our First Sustainability & Beautification Team Meeting of 2025 THIS FRIDAY!

Are you interested in beautifying our school with plants (and shade when winter is over and we need it again)? Would you like to ensure our excess food goes to the hungry in Oakland? Do you want to help your kids and our Thornhill students how to be part of the solution? Come to Taps and Takeout this Friday, January 10 at 4:15pm to learn more!

ALL are welcome (including your kids)!

Here are some of our initiatives this school year:

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Let’s Get these Hosted Parties Started!

Calling all party hosts! It’s time to put our Hosted Party offerings into high gear as we gear up for Thornhill’s auction, Journey to the Stars!


What are Hosted Parties?


Hosted Parties are organized by a Thornhill parent or family, a group of parents or by our teachers. Hosts share the cost of putting together their event and guests buy tickets to attend with all proceeds going to the Thornhill Parent Faculty Club (PFC) to support school programming.


A Hosted Party can be big or small. Parties can be for parents only or just for the kids. They don’t have to actually constitute a “party”, but can instead be an informal gathering. They are a lot of fun and raise money for valuable programs at Thornhill! Here are a few that we had last year:


Pedi Party

Learn to Ride a Bike

Trivia Night

Holi Party


If you have an idea for a party or even just a few questions about hosting, please email hostaparty@thornhillschool.org and we can help you get it going! The possibilities are endless! Interested? Check out these ideas:

Thanks!

Jill Evans

Auction Hosted Party Coordinator

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Be Part of Something Stellar: The Auction Committee Needs your Help!

Planning is officially underway for Thornhill’s Annual Auction, happening on March 15 at The Bridge Yard in Oakland! This year’s theme, Journey to the Stars, promises a cosmic celebration filled with a flowing open bar to keep the good vibes orbiting, a DJ spinning intergalactic beats, a diverse menu of out-of-this-world dishes, thrilling games with grand auction items—all benefitting Thornhill's children. We need YOU to help make it a stellar success!

1. Auction items or services: Have a vacation home you'd be willing to share for a weekend? Or maybe you're a tech whiz or a handy-human who could offer your time? Or perhaps you own a restaurant or are willing to host a tasting of pre-ban absinthe or (more realistically) whiskey...? We'd love to maintain previous items and also expand our offerings this year!

2. Volunteer: We still need a Volunteer Coordinator and a Sponsorships Coordinator. The Auction team is super fun - come join us!

3. Corporate Sponsorships: Don't have an item or a service to share but you've got connections? Help us secure some great corporate sponsorships - we'd love to feature businesses big and small that have connections to our community!


Excited to support? Have an idea? Email Bart Lounsbury at benefit@thornhillschool.org or Tamara Chao at vpfundraising@thornhillschool.org

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Shop and Earn for Thornhill!

Minted Fundraising Program
We're excited to announce that our Minted Fundraising Program is continuing this year! We’re thrilled to partner with Minted again to raise funds for Thornhill throughout the year, simply by shopping for stationery and custom gifts. Use the unique code below to receive 20% off at Minted when you check out. You can also share this code with your supporters—15% of the net sales from each purchase will be donated back to Thornhill. Our code is: FUNDRAISETHORNHILLELEM

ShopRaise Partnership
We’re also excited to introduce our new partnership with ShopRaise this year! Whether you're buying daily essentials like groceries, shopping for home office furniture, or booking your next trip, the ShopRaise app allows you to raise funds for Thornhill Elementary while you shop online—all at no extra cost to you. Now, your everyday shopping can directly support our school. Click the link here to learn more and download the app.


Good Eggs for Thornhill

Shop with Good Eggs to give back to our school. Good Eggs is a game-changing online market that delivers local produce, organic groceries, chef-prepared meals, and easy meal kits straight to your door. It’s all the quality and transparency of a farmer’s market, with the speed and convenience of online ordering.


Enter our school's GoodEggsForThornhill at checkout and 5% of your order's total will contribute to our school's fundraising!!

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Calendar

  • Tuesday, January 7- Friday, January 10: Minimum Days

  • Tuesday, January 7: Auction Meeting via Zoom @ 7:30pm (details in Konstella)

  • Friday, January 10: Sustainability & Beautification Team Meeting at Taps and Takeout @ 4:15pm

  • Monday, January 20: NO SCHOOL (MLK Day)

  • Tuesday, January 21: PFC Meeting 6:00-7:00pm via Zoom (details in Konstella)

  • Tuesday, January 21 - Friday, January 31: Read-a-thon!

  • Wednesday, January 22: Read & Feed in the Multi-Purpose Room (details in Konstella )

  • Monday, February 3: BIPOC Advisory Council Meeting 6:00-7:30pm (details in Konstella)

  • Monday, February 17: NO SCHOOL (President’s Day)

  • Monday, March 3 - Wednesday, March 5: 5th Grade two-night Field Trip to Marin Headlands

  • Monday, March 10 - Friday, March 14: Spring Conference Week (minimum days)

  • Saturday, March 15: Thornhill’s 39th Annual Benefit Auction & Dinner (details in Konstella)


Be sure also to subscribe to the Thornhill Google Calendar here, and download the OUSD District calendar here.

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About the Thornhill Newsletter

The Thornhill Parent-Faculty Club (PFC) eNews team publishes this weekly newsletter each Tuesday in the school year to communicate school, PFC and OUSD news, events and information. We all have plenty of other things to do, but please try to read it weekly, as it will more than likely answer most questions you have about what’s up at school. Information about how to submit to the newsletter is below, but you can reach out to us at any time at newsletter@thornhillschool.org.


Email submissions to our Newsletter Chair, Annie Sartor, at newsletter@thornhillschool.org by 8 p.m. Thursday for approval—nothing sent after this will be included in the following week’s newsletter unless there are extenuating circumstances. It’s fine to include text in the body of the email with links and no formatting, and attach photos preferably as 150 x 150, 72 dpi JPG or GIFs only (not embedded in email or word file). Submissions may be edited for spelling, grammar, brevity and clarity. Advertising and items not related to Thornhill are not accepted, as we need to keep the newsletter focused on need-to-know info for the community.


THANK YOU to everyone who submits articles and to PFC Board Members, Teachers, PFC co-Presidents Becky Gonzales and Catrina Vrankovich, VP of Communications Jill Evans, and Principal Steve Daubenspeck, member of Oakland Unified School District (OUSD).

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