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Foundation seeking best for students
The current financial woes facing public education have generated greater interest in school foundations across our state.
Our community did not need the current crisis to become interested and to support the Glendale Educational Foundation.
Our State of the Schools Breakfast, held last October, was attended by nearly 450 people, with an interest in supporting and learning about our schools from our superintendent, Michael Escalante, and our state superintendent of public instruction, Jack O’ Connell (“Kicking off a year of fundraising for schools,” Oct. 18).
In February, 300 people showed up to support the Dancing with Diamonds Dinner Dance at the Hilton Glendale (“Foundation gets on the ball,” Oct. 7, 2007).
In addition to these events, the community has shown tremendous support for the foundation in the form of contributions and other sponsorships.
We are proud of our strategic partnership with the Glendale Assn. of Realtors, as well as steady support from Smith Barney, the Walt Disney Co., DreamWorks, the Gregg Bussjaeger Memorial Foundation, Fredrick Towers Inc., Leidenfrost/Horowitz & Associates, O’Neal Construction Inspections, the Gas Co., Page & Karen Whyte and Richard and Joyce Ayoob, among others.
Activated just more than three years ago, the Glendale Educational Foundation is dedicated to providing support to our schools in the areas of visual and performing arts, health and fitness, and science and technology. Our programs are also designed to be offered to all of the schools in the district, from La Crescenta to south Glendale.
On June 6, we will hold our third and most exciting event of the school year.
The 2008 Student Showcase will be held that night at the Alex Theatre.
The stars at this event will be our talented students from all around the district. Watch for details and plan to attend this unique event.
The Glendale Educational Foundation cannot solve the deep budget cuts that face our schools, but we can continue to show the schools that we are a community that cares about our children, and will support the programs that the district is unable to continue to provide.
JOHN L. SADD, JR.
Glendale
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sadd is president of the Glendale Educational Foundation.
Comparison to Americana unfair
I found Gerri Cragnotti’s Mailbag letter of April 22 confusing (“Merchants must rise to the occasion,” Mailbag, Tuesday).
She admonishes downtown merchants for maintaining a “boring” and “dismal” status quo while holding up our very own little slice of Las Vegas, the Americana, as some sort of competitive yardstick.
That’s like saying the local hardware store’s failure to compete with Wal-Mart is due to a simple lack of creativity or perhaps even Darwinian natural selection. But then she goes on to suggest that business owners’ successes hinge on “honing of business skills, education to expand expertise, fine-tuning customer service and implementing new and creative ideas to reach customers.” Simple, right?
Considering the “competition” is a bloated, Disney-esque megalopolis and that most local merchants are merely tenants in existing spaces, what exactly are business owners to do with all their energy? Faux Greek columns and fireworks displays?
For starters, Cragnotti lists the Downtown Dash 5K run as an example of spicing things up — an event she attributes to the Americana “looming in their face.” Wow. How are you going to keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen a 5K run?
She also says that “Nothing much stimulating has happened for years in our downtown.”
Tell that to the 40,000 who attend Cruise Night every July. And what exactly defines “boring” and “dismal”?
I find the hodgepodge of businesses along Brand intimate and refreshing — but then again I am rarely drawn to shopping areas due to their cosmetic enormity and the promise of gridlock.
The downtown area features everything from Borders to dusty old antique bookstores — from California Pizza Kitchen to five-stool burger stands. Should Damon’s be relegated to the slag heap because it doesn’t feature fountains or pony rides?
I find it extremely difficult to be unsympathetic to concerned merchants toiling in the shadow of “Fortress Americana” and telling them to just get with the program is unfairly simplistic.
If monolithic incongruity represents the antidote to boring and dismal, all the creativity in the world won’t be leveling this playing field any time soon.
GARY DURRETT
Glendale
The current financial woes facing public education have generated greater interest in school foundations across our state.
Our community did not need the current crisis to become interested and to support the Glendale Educational Foundation.
Our State of the Schools Breakfast, held last October, was attended by nearly 450 people, with an interest in supporting and learning about our schools from our superintendent, Michael Escalante, and our state superintendent of public instruction, Jack O’ Connell (“Kicking off a year of fundraising for schools,” Oct. 18).
In February, 300 people showed up to support the Dancing with Diamonds Dinner Dance at the Hilton Glendale (“Foundation gets on the ball,” Oct. 7, 2007).
In addition to these events, the community has shown tremendous support for the foundation in the form of contributions and other sponsorships.
We are proud of our strategic partnership with the Glendale Assn. of Realtors, as well as steady support from Smith Barney, the Walt Disney Co., DreamWorks, the Gregg Bussjaeger Memorial Foundation, Fredrick Towers Inc., Leidenfrost/Horowitz & Associates, O’Neal Construction Inspections, the Gas Co., Page & Karen Whyte and Richard and Joyce Ayoob, among others.
Activated just more than three years ago, the Glendale Educational Foundation is dedicated to providing support to our schools in the areas of visual and performing arts, health and fitness, and science and technology. Our programs are also designed to be offered to all of the schools in the district, from La Crescenta to south Glendale.
On June 6, we will hold our third and most exciting event of the school year.
The 2008 Student Showcase will be held that night at the Alex Theatre.
The stars at this event will be our talented students from all around the district. Watch for details and plan to attend this unique event.
The Glendale Educational Foundation cannot solve the deep budget cuts that face our schools, but we can continue to show the schools that we are a community that cares about our children, and will support the programs that the district is unable to continue to provide.
JOHN L. SADD, JR.
Glendale
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sadd is president of the Glendale Educational Foundation.
Comparison to Americana unfair
I found Gerri Cragnotti’s Mailbag letter of April 22 confusing (“Merchants must rise to the occasion,” Mailbag, Tuesday).
She admonishes downtown merchants for maintaining a “boring” and “dismal” status quo while holding up our very own little slice of Las Vegas, the Americana, as some sort of competitive yardstick.
That’s like saying the local hardware store’s failure to compete with Wal-Mart is due to a simple lack of creativity or perhaps even Darwinian natural selection. But then she goes on to suggest that business owners’ successes hinge on “honing of business skills, education to expand expertise, fine-tuning customer service and implementing new and creative ideas to reach customers.” Simple, right?
Considering the “competition” is a bloated, Disney-esque megalopolis and that most local merchants are merely tenants in existing spaces, what exactly are business owners to do with all their energy? Faux Greek columns and fireworks displays?
For starters, Cragnotti lists the Downtown Dash 5K run as an example of spicing things up — an event she attributes to the Americana “looming in their face.” Wow. How are you going to keep ’em down on the farm once they’ve seen a 5K run?
She also says that “Nothing much stimulating has happened for years in our downtown.”
Tell that to the 40,000 who attend Cruise Night every July. And what exactly defines “boring” and “dismal”?
I find the hodgepodge of businesses along Brand intimate and refreshing — but then again I am rarely drawn to shopping areas due to their cosmetic enormity and the promise of gridlock.
The downtown area features everything from Borders to dusty old antique bookstores — from California Pizza Kitchen to five-stool burger stands. Should Damon’s be relegated to the slag heap because it doesn’t feature fountains or pony rides?
I find it extremely difficult to be unsympathetic to concerned merchants toiling in the shadow of “Fortress Americana” and telling them to just get with the program is unfairly simplistic.
If monolithic incongruity represents the antidote to boring and dismal, all the creativity in the world won’t be leveling this playing field any time soon.
GARY DURRETT
Glendale
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