Alpine Education Foundation’s annual Spring Gala was held last Saturday at the Viejas Oak Ballroom.
More than 150 guests turned-out for a formal attired evening of good food, great camaraderie and barrage of fun-filled live and silent auctions.
Viejas again provided unsurpassed service. And the Oak Ballroom was splendidly decked-out; every draped table with a crystal centerpiece indirectly lite from above. And walls and walls of display tables decorated with splendid donated floral arrangements. This year’s menu theme – “South of the Border”.
A sky-high “LED wall” presented AEF’s video of accomplishments; $250,000 in support of technology improvements, online dual language learning programs from Raz Kids to IXL Learning to ST Math and more; to classroom and laboratory furnishings, and to continued major support to the award-winning Robotics-Coding-Engineering program at Joan MacQueen, and the AEF delivery of enhanced summer camps.
This year’s Master Auctioneer was Alpine’s Dave Stall, the “Everything Auto” personality of KUSI TV and KCBQ AM 1170. Dave kept all laughing and entertained; and most importantly encouraging the opening of wallets to raise funds for our schools. There were superlative auction items this year from Falconry Lessons by Sky Falconry to exquisite precious jeweled diamond studded rings by CK Diamonds to appearing on the radio live with the Meister himself, Dave.
The Gala raised $20,000 for our schools. The Gala theme was “Wheel of Experts”, a multiple pathways program that provides STEAM based excellence for our children from Kindergarten through the eighth grade. Imagine an elective as early as Kindergarten in Robotics-Engineering and then following that pathway through middle school. Imagine too those Pathways including Math, Music, Art and Physical Education/Sports.
That’s how the $20,000 will be spent. Continuing the growth of Alpine Union into the Destination District of the East County; your exceptional school district, where your children attend!
What is coming next from AEF? It is the return of the summer ReadyBreak Camps. This year there are seventeen Camps being offered in the areas of Robotics, Engineering, multiple Art courses, Nutrition/Cooking, Physical Education, Sports, Dance/Choreography and others. This year newly features the introduction of a Dual Immersion course in the area of Spanish Geography and Culture.
Check out AEF’s website at https://aef4kids.org/
Pass the word! And register those kids!