Thornhill Elementary PFC Newsletter

• Help Needed: Keep Drop-Off & Pick-Up Running Smoothly for our Teachers & Kids
• Calling All Thunder Dads! Unleash Your Inner Thunder!
• Thornhill + Oakland Roots FC Partnership
• Shop and Earn for Thornhill
• Have you got your Summer Camps Booked?

• Calendar of Important Dates

Get ready to Journey to the Stars for an unforgettable evening! There will be great food by Off the Grid, an open bar (yes, all drinks are included with your ticket!), exciting games, and both silent and live auctions filled with incredible items—there’s something for everyone, no matter your budget. If you purchased a ticket to the auction, be on the lookout for messages from the auction site with important details about early check-in, parking, and directions.

The auction is a huge part of Thornhill’s fundraising efforts, generating over half of the Parent-Faculty Club’s (PFC) annual budget. Every dollar raised helps fund essential programs like PE, music, library, teacher’s aides, and more.

Let’s give another round of applause for our Auction Committee who are making this event happen... Bart Lounsbury, Danielle Clark, Jill Evans, Ryan Clark, Becky Gonzales, Jane Yi, Chris Pomodoro, Adu Desta, Jing Sun, Bianca Darville, Chelsea Boniak, Lisa Voong, Bronwen Sterling, Tamara Chao, Christen Knudsen, Annie Sartor & Alan Burruel

Thornhill thrives because of our amazing community. We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of our donors, sponsors and volunteers, and we can’t wait for a fantastic FUNdraising night with all of you!

Check out Auction FAQs for more details, and if you have further questions, feel free to email Bart Lounsbury at benefit@thornhillschool.org

The auction is around the corner and we need YOU!!!! Volunteer participation is what has made this critical event such a success year over year and we're looking to fill out lots of fun shifts. This is an amazing way to get involved in the auction, meet new people and strengthen our community. There are so many ways to participate - from decor set up to running games - please take a look and SIGN UP TODAY!

Thank you!

Bronwen Sterling, Auction Volunteer Coordinator

We’re incredibly grateful for our dedicated traffic heroes, but we need more volunteers to keep the drop off/pick up systems running smoothly every day. Our regular volunteers—who generously help in the mornings and afternoons—sometimes have scheduling conflicts, making it difficult to sustain operations with a limited team.

Our TOP PRIORITY is finding more experts in the fine art of car door opening for morning drop-off—especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays—and afternoon pickup every day, with an extra need on Mondays.

We're urgently seeking morning drop-off volunteers to:

• Help children safely out of their cars on Thornhill Drive

• Be on-site from 8:10–8:40 AM (final bell rings at 8:35 AM)
  
  

We're urgently seeking afternoon pick-up volunteers to:

• Help children safely transition from their teacher to their cars in the pick up line on Thornhill Drive

• Be on-site from 2:20–3:00 PM Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday

• Be on-site from 1:15-1:45 PM Wednesday
  
  

We’re excited to announce that Thornhill Elementary is partnering with the Oakland Roots through their Champion Fundraising Program for the 2025 season at the iconic Oakland Coliseum! This initiative helps support local schools, nonprofits, and youth sports clubs while promoting the positive impact of professional sports in the East Bay.

With every ticket purchased using our special promo code, Thornhill earns 20% of the ticket sales revenue (excluding fees). Whether you're a passionate soccer fan or just looking for a fun family outing, this is a fantastic way to cheer on the Oakland Roots while giving back to our school!

The Oakland Roots first home game is scheduled for Saturday, March 22, 2025, at 7:00 PM, where they will host San Antonio FC at the historic Oakland Coliseum.

For a complete schedule of the 2025 season and to purchase tickets, visit Thornhill’s unique link: oaklandrootssc.com/fundraiser
Use promo code: THORNHILLROOTS (case-sensitive)

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.

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).