Southern Sonoma Country Life

Funding The Future for 28 Schools in The Petaluma Area as The Free to Attend For the First Time, 2020 Petaluma Educational Foundation Annual Fundraising BASH Goes Virtual

Petaluma Educational Foundation invites us to have a little well-earned fun for an evening as we experience our shared community spirit at the 2020 PEF BASH. 

This longtime and much-loved signature event supporting the mission of the Petaluma Educational Foundation (PEF) is going ahead with the annual party on September 12th this year, but the format of the event is changing given the current health crisis.

A new, free to attend online live-stream broadcast (virtual) gala is set to keep the spirit of the BASH alive in a year that local students and schools need the community's support more than ever.

The BASH: Bringing All Students Hope invites the public to tune-in, watch, bid, pledge and celebrate from the comfort of their own homes. 

On Saturday, September 12th, PEF will host another legendary night benefiting the mission of PEF supporting all 12,000+ students attending the 38 TK-12 public, not-for-profit, and charter schools in the Petaluma area.

Enjoy a free, interactive one-hour presentation filled with music, special messages, Taste of the Town Restaurant Raffle drawings and live auction lots. All this excitement leads to the gala’s traditional highlight of the night, where the essence of the program's message about financially supporting every student truly takes center stage.

Funding the Future of education is vital. PEF, which does not receive any government funding, is committed to ensuring that critical resources are available to all our schools. The annual PEF BASH provides the public an opportunity to hear first-hand how they can partner with others to continue to the mission of the foundation. This year that message is no different. Now more than ever, our students need us.  

Special 2020 PEF Grant Fund 

PEF has convened its superintendents and principals to clearly understand the individual school priorities during this unprecedented year. At the BASH, a challenge will be issued to our community to help address the shared immediate needs identified to keep our students on solid footing.

The two initiatives for 2020-2021 PEF Grant funding will focus on Social-Emotional Learning Support (SEL) and Technology (tools and access). Both can be successfully implemented regardless of on-campus instruction, distance learning, or a hybrid of the two modalities. 

This year PEF has established a fund dedicated to supporting these two specific program areas. Its fund goal is $200,000. This type of effort requires partners. PEF is asking the community to collectively raise its virtual paddles enabling EVERY one of the 38 schools in the Petaluma area the opportunity to apply and receive partner funding. 

By doing this, our community will be helping students confidently move forward knowing we all believe in them, we're ready to empower them and together, we are investing in their future. All those pledging support will be publicly celebrated during the live-stream broadcast. PEF recognizes this is a challenging year for many. Your commitment to PEF will carry an impact on generations to come. Our students NEED us more than ever. We need to do this now so they can succeed today, tomorrow, and in the future.

Register FREE online (pefbash2020.afrogs.org) and view the menu of special BASH event add-on items: Pre-Order Dinner (3 entrees to choose from) by Ray's Catering Petaluma Pop Up Kitchen, Access to the Virtual VIP Happy Hour with local mixologist Phaedra Achor of FloraLuna Apothecary & Trading Co., Order one of the BASH Custom Cocktail Kits to make at home, Pre-Pledge $25 and receive a bottle of wine to enjoy during the BASH event.  

PEF Partners for Education – Clover Sonoma, Petaluma Health Care District, and Petaluma Market along with Valedictorian partner Exchange Bank are this year's top-tier sponsors. This year PEF welcomes Edward Jones Petaluma and Friend of PEF as Salutatorian Partners. Honor Roll Partners include Argus-Courier, Baldwin, McGaughey & Co LLP CPAs, Fishman Supply Co, Golden State Lumber, Hennessy Cornerstone Value Fund, Law Offices of Bridget Mackay, Pisenti & Brinker, LLP, Quattrocchi Kwok Architects, River City Bank, Ross Recreation Equipment, Team Ghilotti, Inc, The Regan Home Loan Group, along with Teacher’s Pet Partners: Cal-West Rents/Encore Events Rentals, Comcast, Dow Development Laboratories, Kaiser Permanente, Raymond A. Ramos, DDS & Associates Pediatric Dentistry, Roman's Plumbing, Sonoma County Office of Education, Studio PR, Top Speed Data Communications, and Study Sync.

Without the financial pledge of these local and regional businesses, the event would not be possible.  We are grateful for their dedication to making sure supporting local education is a priority in our community.

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The Petaluma Educational Foundation (PEF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1982. PEF has been supporting generations of Petaluma’s Transitional Kindergarten (TK) – 12^th grade students. The mission of PEF since its inception is: Every child has a dream. The Petaluma Educational Foundation creates community partnerships to fulfill these dreams. 

 

PEF Grant and Scholarship programs have awarded a cumulative $7,580,695 to enhance and enrich the academic experience of more than 12,000 students in Petaluma’s 38 public, charter, and not-for-profit private schools.  PEF believes in them. PEF empowers them. PEF  invests in their future.

Your Vote Matters — Art as Action — Join Petaluma Arts Center Outdoors in Mobilizing The Vote

 

Petaluma Arts Center is energizing artists and community to ramp up the Voting spirit this August as we count down the weeks until the most important VOTING DAY of most of our lives. 

To see all of the Arts Center Art as Action pieces online click here:  and/or, to buy some pretty awesome products with local artist images on them, including t-shirts, posters, cards and masks click here: deedsgetoutandvote.art/store.

Spotlight on Sonoma County Wines — Kutch of Sonoma, Small, Bespoke and Extraordinary

Sonoma County winery spotlight to kick off the 2020 harvest season and fall releases puts a well-deserved focus on Kutch, of Sonoma, as the small, bespoke winery newly releases an offering of its only single vineyard Chardonnay-Trout Gulch, its acclaimed McDougall Ranch Pinot Noir, a Bohan Graveyard Pinot and Signal Ridge Pinot. 

"We are thrilled with the outcome of our 2018s as they continue to evolve says winemaker/owner Jamie Kutch. "It started in the vineyards as all the elements really came together and yielded fruit of great quality. . . they really are gorgeous."

Described as being vivid wines that very much capture the personality of the year in their translucent expression of place, Jamie's almost Old World style of Pinot and Chardonnay are true boutique wines for the Sonoma County wine lover. 

As the old saying goes: “wine is made in the vineyard.” Following this philosophy, Jamie and his team strives for well positioned, cold climate vineyard sites, with appropriate soils.

"It has been a challenge to locate and secure such sites, causing our production to grow at a slow but steady pace," says Jamie. "Once the fruit is harvested, it is handled with the utmost care, sorted meticulously and moved only by gravity. We attempt to pursue a minimalist philosophy, trying to provide the purest expression of Pinot Noir from a particular place and time, taking great care not to over-manipulate our wines in the cellar. This minimal interventionalist style of wine-making is reflected in our use of indigenous yeast, native malolactic bacteria and élevage in 100% neutral oak barrels (no new)." 

All punch-downs are done by foot. Upon completion of fermentation, these wines are gravity flowed into French oak barrels, where they remain unmoved while aging sur lie (on the fine lees). The wines are not racked until ready to bottle, between 11 and 16 months after harvest. AKutch wines are encouraged to express all of the natural greatness of their vineyard origins.

"This is our 15 vintage release! The wines really taste like Sonoma," says Jamie, whose wines have been touted by critics as ridiculously good. "They teleport you to the vineyards each with their own distinct smell and taste. Weather grown in sand or rock, high above the fog at 1,400 feet elevation or 300 feet and below.  We let mother nature dictate the wines and she helped shape and grow some fantastic grapes in 2018. We are really proud."

*Link to place an order for Kutch wines  ORDER LINK

Link to  FALL NEWSLETTER

Link to Zoom tasting of these wines
 

 

Virtual Art in the Park — Petaluma Art Association Steps Up Its Annual Showcase Event with a Widely Expanded Range of Regional Artists

​Petaluma Arts Association's (not to be confused with the Arts Center) annual Art in the Park has brought regional artists and our local community together in historic Walnut Park since 1957.

 

As with all of our favorite annual outdoor festivals and shows, the coronavirus pandemic has lead the association to cancel its physical event this year. However, the good news is that it gave the group the opportunity to transform the event into an online showcase of the work of a wider range of talented creators across Sonoma, Marin, and Napa counties. 

Art lovers are invited to explore a new Virtual Art in the Park website to discover art, fine crafts, music, poetry and performances and learn about the people who create them. Much of the work you'll find is available for purchase.

 

Enjoy the creativity of the North Bay! It's a super impressive line-up this year. Here are a couple of screen grabs from the website. There are dozens of artists to peruse. Here are just a few:

 

 

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"Our common world is elevated by seeing people succeed and our choice to make this event free of fees and commissions was primarily in response to a pandemic that's greatly limited the opportunities available to creators," Petaluma Arts Association reports. "We hope this exhibition will help support creators and our local art scenes by providing a place to show and sell work."

Petaluma Arts Association shares: "We'd like to acknowledge another dimension of shared interest and join the chorus of voices affirming that BLACK LIVES MATTER. We believe the opportunity to not be at a much higher risk of being killed by police should be extended to everyone. We urge you to lend your voice and explore what change might be possible in service of a better world." 

https://www.virtualartinthepark.org/

Celebrate National Pinot Day, August 18th with Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance on Facebook Live

Pinot lovers, mark your calendars for August 18, 5 PM. Raise a Glass with Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance President Erica Stancliff & VP Tom Gendall on National PinotNoirDay for a Facebook Live Celebration of PetalumaGap Wines.

 

The Petaluma Gap Pinots are garnering all sorts of big accolades in all the major wine competitions these days. I'm a big Pinot Noir fan myself and I make it a priority to source my wines as local as possible when I'm out shopping the wine aisle of Petaluma stores. We've enjoyed a case of the former Kastania Vineyards delicious Pinot this summer, after the winery changed hands with early Petaluma Gap members Hoot and Linda Smith retiring from winemaking. I'm looking forward to tasting the wines made by new owner Laurence Donald under the label Parum Leo in years to come. 

 

Adobe Road Winery has recently moved its temporary riverfront outdoor tasting tents to the trestle, in partnership with the Riverfront Cafe. Adobe's Pinots are great, as are Keller Estate Winery's, Azari, McEvoy amongst many more.

 

Here's an extensive list of Petaluma Gap wineries. Please do support our local wineries and the families who work the land and cellars and tasting rooms when you're out buying your wine. 

 

The Petaluma Gap also produces wines for many of the wider region’s finest wineries including: Keller Estate Winery, Rodney Strong Vineyards, Guarachi Family Wines, deLoach Vineyards, Flowers Vineyard and Winery, Hart’s Desire Wines, Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, Kosta-Browne Winery, Landmark Vineyards, Loxton Cellars, Sojourn Cellars, Schramsberg Vineyards, and Zepaltas Wines. 

 

And hey, since we've a little more time on our hands for celebrating all the wine holidays, click here for a list of all the other wonderful varietals waiting for their big day!