Now More Than Ever - Invest in Oakland Schools

December 2009

Dear Fellow Supporters of Oakland Public Schools,

I'm often asked, What does OSSF do? You help schools raise money, right? This is true: We're proud to have raised $10 million for Oakland's public schools over the last five years. But money is only the means. The ends are what we see happening around us every day.

On my way into work – our office is a classroom inside Fruitvale's ASCEND K-8 – I pass students tending the school garden, for which OSSF helped secure grant funding. In the hallway, I see photos from a field trip to Point Reyes Seashore, an experience we helped fund and wrote about in The ASCEND Voice. Walking into our office, I find parent leaders from several schools sitting around our conference table, discussing family engagement as part of OSSF's collaborative FamELI program. These are just a few of the real outcomes we've helped our schools achieve.

More than 85 percent of our operating budget goes directly to working with and for OSSF's clients: 40 Oakland public schools serving more than 12,000 students. And our schools have had clear success. As summed up in the enclosed newsletter, our member schools made great strides on standardized tests, with achievement that outpaced district and state averages.

This spring, using our work with small schools as a model, OSSF will become the Oakland Schools Foundation (OSF) so that we can promote excellence for all students in Oakland. The time is right, now, for us to reach more schools. We hope to add ten new schools this year, increasing our network to 50 schools.

To extend our reach as we become the Oakland Schools Foundation, we need your help.

Your dollars, too, will reach further. When you donate to us, we use your money to earn more for schools, which they use to support programs and activities like field trips, gardens, family literacy, internships, after-school enrichment, and other needs that our schools – all of which serve predominantly low-income students – simply cannot afford within their existing budgets. We also coach the schools to use their money efficiently and run programs with tangible results.

We believe all kids in all neighborhoods should have great schools, and our team is doing its part to make this real in Oakland. Please think of OSSF when you are planning your holiday giving. Consider a monthly recurring gift – a dollar a day turns into nearly $2,000 for schools by year's end. Ask at work about a matching gift program. You can give here or send a check to the address below. Thank you for your support, and Happy Holidays!

Holly Babe Faust, Executive Director

Oakland Small Schools Foundation
P.O. Box 20238
Oakland, CA 94620